


certainty of now

by hardscrabble



Series: and my glance turns to a stare [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Background Victuuri - Freeform, Kissing Games, M/M, Multi, The Dreaded Growth Spurt, Underage Drinking, alternating pov, incidental Yuri/random OCs, text conversations as character growth, the otabek/seunggil is like antiromance I'm sorry, the thing about freakishly talented teenagers is how much they suck at everything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-05-25 18:06:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14982656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardscrabble/pseuds/hardscrabble
Summary: The 2015-16 skating season starts with Yuri agreeing to be one of Viktor Nikiforov's groomsmen, meeting Otabek's younger sister Feruza, admitting he's actually okay with sharing a rink with the Katsudon, and cleaning a new quad. Then everything gets all jacked up, but he's Yuri Plisetsky: if the universe wants a fight, he'll give it one.[Part of a series, but this can function as a standalone with some info given in the note in Ch. 1.]





	1. clench your fist and close your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> In this series of fics - I wasn't even planning on a series, it just HAPPENED - each individual work can function as a standalone. Critical info from preceding bits: Otabek's sister Feruza (16 as of the end of this chapter) is a very talented violinist attending a conservatory in Almaty, and Otabek has been working with his coach Karim Sarper since his second year at the junior level.
> 
> Less critical but still important: Otabek loves thrash metal.

Yuri’s first Tuesday as a figure skater not ranked among the top three in the senior division (he promises himself he’ll stop marking time like this, once he makes it back to the top three) is going totally as expected until Nikiforov and the Katsudon spring a cake on him.

Sure, he’s turned sixteen today. His Instagram and Twitter notifications are a frenzy of Angels tagging him in weird Photoshops with cat ears and shutter shades (which, _what_?) and artifact-heavy animated text involving things that should not be done to the Cyrillic alphabet. However, there’s the Internet and there’s real life, and never the twain shall meet—unless there’s a convenient motorcycle escape, as in Barcelona. Since they’re off training, Lilia is hosting a party in her elegant minefield of a house over the weekend—his rinkmates, their friends, Yakov’s friends, Lilia’s friends, _everyone’s_ friends except Yuri’s, because his is in Kazakhstan—and Yuri was certain he was off the hook for today. Even when the old man asked him over for dinner.

He had been a bit surprised at the invitation—they’d arrived home from Shanghai _yesterday_ , and his internal clock is still working out whether it’s going to punch him in the face with a jetlag coma—but free food is free food. Besides, the Katsudon made katsudon. Viktor bewailing his weakness as a coach for indulging his record-breaking world-champion fiancé with permission to eat Japanese comfort food every day for a week is a worthy price of admission for Katsuki’s cooking.

The katsudon is all gone when Nikiforov returns from putting dishes in their flat’s little kitchen carrying a platter that holds a cake iced with a leopard-spot pattern ( _really?_ ) and sixteen actual candles, already lit. Katsuki smiles at Yuri and dims the lights in the flat’s excuse of a dining area. And then they start singing that one American birthday song, Nikiforov going nuts on vibrato and both of them drawing out “dear Yur-i-oooooooo,” and Yuri tells himself that his face is warm because there is _fire_ sticking out of a leopard-print _cake_ in front of it, not because he’s pleased by these dorks doing something imported from a made-for-TV movie-musical for him.

He blows out the candles in one go, because of course he does, before he demands, “Okay, what’s going on here?”

“It’s your birthday,” Nikiforov says, heart-smiling as he picks up the knife to cut the cake. “I know I haven’t gotten the day wrong.”

“But _singing?_ ”

“That was my idea,” says Katsuki, borderline sheepish. “Sorry, I got into the habit while I was in college, I know it’s a little silly.”

Yuri prevents himself from consoling Katsuki, because the top-ranked men’s figure skater on the planet does not require consolation, particularly when he is being weird and American. Nikiforov puts a plate in front of him, laden with a slice of leopard-print cake. “No, I mean what is this _for_? What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch!” Nikiforov says, and places a long-fingered hand over his heart. “Goodness, if your friends can’t celebrate your birthday with you, Yurio—”

“Stop calling me that,” he interrupts, although it sounds lackluster. Well, yelling at a guy known for emotionality who’s holding a big-ass knife is poor tactics.

Katsuki speaks over Nikiforov’s reply. “Actually, Viktor did want to ask you something.” When Nikiforov gives him one of his goddamn sad puppy faces, he simply blinks back. Beneath his wide-eyed softie act, he’s selectively Viktor-resistant. He just says, “Didn’t you.”

“I knew it,” Yuri mutters, and folds his arms. “Out with it, old man. I’m not eating your cake until I know why I’m being bribed.”

Nikiforov sighs heavily as he cuts another slice and passes it to Katsuki, who—Yuri nearly chokes—rolls his eyes as he takes it. “ _Bribery_ —I don’t know where you get these ideas, Yurotchka. Anyway. You know we’ll be getting married—”

“The entire _world_ knows you’re getting married. If there’s life on Mars, _it_ knows you’re getting married.”

“Yes,” says Nikiforov, beaming. “Next summer, at Yu-Topia. And I’d be honored if you’d be one of my groomsmen.”

Yuri blinks.

He remembers Katsuki saying this about time and place, or something like it, after he’d blustered his way into his first conversation with the Katsudon and Viktor the day after the Worlds awards ceremony (that he _was not_ _in_ ). However, at the time, he’d been far too busy attempting to project _don’t even fucking think the word ‘pity’ at me_ to the rest of the Russian skaters to really process it. “Next summer,” he repeats slowly. “Like. Twenty—”

“Sixteen,” Katsuki finishes for him. “Yes. We’d discussed trying to fit it into the season, but it just doesn’t make sense, not if we want—” he does not say “skaters,” but he means it— “our friends to be able to come and enjoy themselves.”

“You’re telling me I’m going to be listening to _this_ one—” Yuri jerks his chin at Nikiforov— “having fits about wedding planning for a _year_?”

“Actually _,”_ says Nikiforov, forgoing the chance to protest at this fair and correct description of his general behavior, which suggests that he both knows and accepts that he’s a walking melodrama factory, “I’m asking you to _assist_ me in having fits about wedding planning. For a year. As one of my party.”

Yuri is nonplussed. There’s probably some kind of canned response for this, but, considering that he is only nineteen or twenty hours into being sixteen years old, he doesn’t know it. “What do I have to do?”

Viktor beams again. “Yurio—”

“I didn’t say yes, and _don’t call me that_ ,” he snaps.

“Always this emotional rollercoaster,” says Viktor, eyes heavenward. If Yuri is a rollercoaster, Viktor’s a vomit comet, but Yuri doesn’t say so. “ _If_ you do me the honor of joining my party, you…” He drops the aggrieved act and goes businesslike in that way he has. The snap transition is apparently unsettling to people who haven’t known him since they were six, but Yuri finds practicality-Viktor far easier to deal with. “Look, Chris and Yuuko will be working with us on most of the logistics. Day of, you’d stand somewhere nearby and look good. Maybe help Chris and the Nishigoris with details.”

Yuri considers, and then says, “Otabek’s invited.” He doesn’t bother to inflect it like a question. It isn’t one; it is a statement of terms.

“Sure,” Katsuki replies, as Nikiforov peers at Yuri like he _hasn’t_ known him for a full decade, mouth half-open, before he jerks and glares at his fiancé: Katsuki has kicked him under the table. Sometimes, Yuri is almost fond of this guy who stole Nikiforov for eight fucking months. “He’s your friend; that’s a recommendation in itself,” the Katsudon continues.

He’s not doing the sparkly I’m-trying-to-fuck-with-you thing, which indicates he’s probably serious, so Yuri says, “Deal.”

Nikiforov glows. “That’s wonderful!” he says. “ _Thank_ you, Yurotchka!”

“Yeah, whatever.” Yuri picks up his fork and goes to work on the cake.

***

In the next weeks, after his not-for-blackmail-purposes birthday party and a mild hangover (only because it’s the off-season), he and Yakov and Lilia figure out what next season is going to look like.

On consideration, Yuri concludes that they’d erred, strategy-wise, in his debut season by including so many competitions. Sure, the hardware’s nice, but he’d spent his entire time during the season polishing and correcting based on performance feedback, which—he thinks—may have worked the life out of his programs. They’d peaked at the GPF, which had been gratifying (aside from fucking up his free skate), but by the end of the season, both routines were littered with mental Post-Its reading _tighter here_ and _watch the approach_ and _extension here_ and _hand positioning_ and _more power; downgrade if needed_. Skating them was like going through checklists. He doesn’t go for the whole Zen blankness thing that Otabek apparently cultivates for performance, but the one time he’d inadvertently just… inhabited his body, instead of holding himself six inches away to watch, at the GPF during _Agape_ , he’d smashed Nikiforov’s record to pieces. Plus, his sixteen-hour-turnaround gala skate from two days later outstrips all other videos on his YouTube channel by a few million views.

He is aware this probably correlates with the Angels’ obsession with the glove thing (it has its own Tumblr tag), rather than purely reflecting the vitality or even the quality of the skate as a performance, but it’s still data.

Besides, there’d been that surprise at Worlds: Otabek introducing new jumps in the last _days_ of the season.

Yuri is not letting that happen again.

So they cut back. They keep the GP series, the Golden Spin, and the workup to Worlds—Russian and then European championships, Worlds if he qualifies (he’ll qualify), maybe see if he can last-minute something if he won’t (but he will). Quality, not quantity, although last year he’d managed both. Until he hadn’t.

It stings. Not as much as it had on March 28th, but it’s still there: _not enough, not when you needed it_. But he can counter now, albeit somewhat ineffectually, with _learning experience, Plisetsky_ , and get back to work.

And there’s plenty of work: music, choreography, costumes. Lilia’s picked a weird piece for his short program—it’s stripped down, just strings, with all this _space_ and weird tension in the melody; she’s envisioning (her word) a deep red top and black close-fitting pants for his costume, hair slicked into a knot at the nape of his neck. His free skate music is more like _Apassionata_ , a whirlwind of piano, occasionally falling entirely out of anything resembling a tempo. For this, she picks green, directing the designer she’s commissioned to match his eyes as closely as possible. That means that Yuri spends an _hour_ standing under different light filters until the designer has a satisfactory bank of photos. It’s not nearly as bad as he expects; Lizveta is stealth-cool as hell beneath her connected-costumer façade and plays some mid-2000s electronic/rock band through the hour and the subsequent measurements, while telling stories about clients she’s dressed in the past.

“Balance,” Lilia says, of the two programs and their opposition. “In all things,” and cuts her eyes at him.

This is probably another goddamn reference to the goddamn exhibition skate thing. Which, Lilia informs him with something that would sound like glee in a less refined witch disguised as a retired prima ballerina, will be _his_ responsibility down to the last detail, and that includes costuming, as well as _financials_.

She makes this last sound like a looming horror—granted, she routinely gives invitations for tea that land like death sentences—but Yuri’s been dressing himself out of his own pocket since he came to St. Petersburg with Yakov and opinions. She’s going to have to try a hell of a lot harder to get his exhibition skates back into her claws.

***

[May 27, 2015, 17:37 MSK, St. Petersburg, Russia/20:37 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

 **yuri_plisetsky:** u got gala skate vid?  
**otabek_a:** yeah. looks good. aside from the shaky cam.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** blame mila she took it  
**yuri_plisetsky:** does the music work  
**otabek_a:** might want to edit out the voiceover parts.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** gghghg mila said so 2 ill think abt it  
**otabek_a:** what are you doing on june 6?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** summer conditioning  
**yuri_plisetsky:** idiot  
**yuri_plisetsky:** w8 y  
**otabek_a:** feruza is in a summer program with the st. petersburg philharmonic  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ok  &  
**otabek_a:** I’m flying in to see their concert on june 5.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** O SHIT  
**yuri_plisetsky:** COOL  
**yuri_plisetsky:** where u satying??  
**otabek_a:** one of her friends offered a couch.  
**otabek_a:** she has a free day after the show. would you like to meet her? we could get dinner.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** o lets see hiding in my room vs hanging w/ my weird friend HMM  
**yuri_plisetsky:** CHOICES CHOICES  
**otabek_a:** I’ll text.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** U BETTER

***

It’s beautiful out, bright and warm, and Yuri is at the rink because where else would he be? Nearing four o’clock on a weekend in early June—Yakov left ages ago, but the Katsudon is still there, too, so if either of them fucks up they’ll have someone to call for help, or whatever. They don’t speak to each other, but the scrape of blades on ice serves as counterpoint to a peaceful silence. Katsuki is ten pounds of _feelings_ in a five-pound bag and demonstrably terrible in selecting life partners, but Yuri will give him this, after sharing a rink for six months: he knows how to work. Especially in the absence of Nikiforov’s dramatics.

Yuri is playing with split jumps in one corner of the rink, farthest from the doors, when they both swing open with their customary shrieks. He pulls himself into a half-Biellmann spiral to check on the newcomers.

Otabek Altin is walking toward the boards. He’s wearing that band t-shirt he’d bought in Barcelona and is paced by a girl who _has_ to be his sister, based on eyebrows alone.

Without dropping his pose by an inch, Yuri scowls and yells, “You said you were gonna text.”

“I texted Mila,” Otabek replies, voice carrying without actually sounding like he’s trying to pitch it louder, which is a trick Yuri is going to have to learn.

Right after he learns why Otabek is texting _Mila_ , of all people.

Katsuki calls cheerfully from center ice, “Oh, Otabek! It’s good to see you!”

Otabek’s sister elbows him in the side.

“And you, Yuuri,” he says, ignoring her. Katsuki heads over to them, small-talking—how long Otabek is in town, why, how old Feruza is, what she plays, where Otabek’s staying, how was travel—as Yuri abandons the half-Biellmann and approaches, observing the person he has so far only known as an Instagram screen name.

Feruza Altin is short, barely five feet, and built sturdily; aside from the eyebrows, she resembles her brother in coloring only, with a round face, a strong arch to her nose, and a _ton_ of dark curly hair. She has a tote bag slung over her left shoulder that’s emblazoned with a clef symbol and the text “HERE COMES TREBLE” in English, which is so awful he likes it immediately. She bundles her hair—there’s masses of it—into a ponytail, then twists and coils that into a knot, fixing it with two elastics from around her wrist. She finishes just as Yuri comes up alongside Katsuki.

“Oi, Otabek,” he says.

Otabek nods. “Yuri. Meet Feruza.”

She smiles broadly and sticks her hand out over the boards. “Yuri Plisetsky,” she says, like his name is a crucial element in a heist plan. “Good to meet you at last.”

He shakes with her—she has a pattern of calluses on her palm and fingers—and may or may not smile because he has to glare at Otabek. “What did you tell her?” he demands, and Feruza laughs delightedly. Otabek shrugs.

“Looked like you were working on stuff,” he says, in the way he has of elegantly not answering questions. “Anything in particular?”

“I’m about done,” says Katsuki, who is glancing at all three of them in turn with a warm smile like he is just so pleased to observe teenagers interacting. As he steps off the ice, he asks, “What about you, Yurio?”

“ _Still_ not my name.” This, for some reason, makes Feruza laugh again. “Nothing real yet. Why? Pre-season recon?”

Otabek shrugs. “Just wondering.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Yuri says. “I got a quad loop clean!”

“Show,” says Otabek. “Feru, get your camera.”

“Wait—Otabek, did you bring—no, you wouldn’t have, that’s—”

“He could borrow,” Katsuki offers from off the ice.

“Otabek, want to skate?”

Feruza says, “Otash, you could break Twitter again!”

“So I’d better borrow.”

" _Duh._ "

He looks at Katsuki. “You’re sure it’s all right?”

“Absolutely,” he replies.

Katsuki and Otabek go off for a pair of practice skates from the rental stockpile, leaving Yuri approximately alone with Feruza. Which he doesn’t have time to develop an opinion about, because Feruza immediately beckons him to her level—in his skates he’s a head taller than her, which is novel and somewhat enjoyable, but he leans his elbows on the boards and dips his head toward her—and mutters into his ear, “I swear, you are _the_ best thing that’s happened to Otash since he started with Karim.”

“I what?” And a second thing. “Otash—is that a—”

“Nickname. My use only. But honestly, you know what that idiot used to do at competitions all over the stupid _planet_? He’d _sit in his hotel room and read_. And then you’re like, hi, I’m a two-time junior world champion and fangirls are going to eat me, and suddenly he’s all over Buzzfeed because he was next to Viktor fucking Nikiforov when he announced his _engagement?_ You got him to _update his Instagram_.”

Yuri is getting the feeling that Feruza is very, very unlike her brother. “That dinner was by accident.”

“No, I know, in every pic you look so homicidal, it’s _so_ good, and Otash explained. But _still_. Plus the glove thing, and now he’s friends with Mila Babicheva—”

“Yeah, about that. Since when?”

Feruza taps her fingers along the top of the boards as she thinks. “Worlds? He mentioned talking to her then. _And_ at the banquet in Barcelona he got the balls to ask about the composer who did Katsuki Yuuri’s free skate music.”

“Like talking to Katsuki even needs balls—”

“No, you don’t understand.” Feruza drops her voice even further. “He has the _hugest_ skating crush on him.”

“He what _,_ ” says Yuri blankly.

She grins. “I _know_. But I didn’t tell you that, okay? Anyway, Yuri Plisetsky, you’re good for my brother in your weird knife shoes world, and I am pleased with you. What’s your number?”

 _Knife shoes world_. Yes, he likes Feruza. They swap phone numbers and messaging app handles before the Katsudon and Otabek reappear, Otabek in skates and Katsuki in sneakers.

Feruza calls, “Favorite brother! How are you showing off for me today?”

Otabek shrugs as Katsuki says, “Oh, you have other siblings? Are they older or younger?”

“It’s just us,” replies Otabek.

“And the cat,” adds Feruza.

It takes Katsuki about half a second before he beams at both Altins. “I _see_.”

***

Otabek can’t do anything terribly impressive because he’s wearing street clothes, but he does a couple laps with random hops and singles while Yuri shows off his new jump—he two-foots it and swears at the top of his lungs in three languages, but he’s clearly got it. Feruza records a thirty-second video of the two of them doing camel spins, Yuri yelling at Otabek to stop fucking up his free leg throughout (Otabek finds himself relaxing in a way he hasn’t managed yet on this trip; something about being on the ice and the target of Yuri Plisetsky’s shouting); she plays it back, cackles, and sends it to both of them. Katsuki Yuuri waves a farewell to the three of them once Otabek and Yuri step off the ice.

While he’s stretching, Yuri uploads the video to his Youtube channel and Instagram (“dont get sloppy @otabek-altin”) while interrogating Otabek about training and Feruza about her opinions regarding St. Petersburg. By the time he’s changed out of training gear and the three of them are headed somewhere for food, the video has hit the major skating fan forums. Otabek himself is only aware of this as Yuri reads updates from his phone; he’s busy being overwhelmed by exactly how quickly and thoroughly his little sister has clicked with his skating friend. As they get seats at Yuri’s favorite local place, Feruza is quizzing Yuri on his short program music and he’s attempting to hum the melody for her and failing miserably, and she laughs increasingly hysterically until he pulls up an MP3 on his phone and plays it.

Her brow furrows. “What the hell is that arrangement? It’s supposed to—” She swipes through her own phone for a moment and plays a different version.

After five seconds, Yuri narrows his eyes at her. “What’s the difference?” he says.

“Oh my _god_ —” But she’s not mad, she’s delighted, and she demands to know whether Yuri knows what a _quartet_ is versus a concerto versus a symphony, or a key signature or a time signature—“I know how to _count_ ,” he interrupts, scowling, but there’s no heat in it—and by the time the food comes they’re squabbling and insulting each other like they’ve been friends for life.

Otabek is, in a word, pleased.

“You need to see my cat,” Yuri announces, and opens his gallery of Potya pictures. There are about a thousand more than there were the last time Otabek saw the folder in December. “This is Potya. She's six-ish. You have Inzhu, right?”

“Yeah—my favorite monster.” Feruza leans over the table and gasps. “She's _beautiful._ ”

“I know.” He looks adoringly at his own phone screen, eyes soft.

“Is the name short for something? It sounds like a diminutive.”

“Yeah,” he replies, and his jaw hardens. “Puma Tiger Scorpion.” There’s a hint of a challenge in his voice; he’s on the defensive.

He doesn’t need to be; Feruza announces that this is _the best name_ with absolute sincerity.

“I’d take you guys to meet her, but you’d have to deal with my ballet instructor…”

“I deal with conductors. And woodwinds,” Feruza says. “I can handle a ballet teacher.”

Yuri scrutinizes her for a moment, and his mouth twists thoughtfully. “Huh. You probably can.”

Which is how Otabek finally meets Lilia Baranovskaya face-to-face. She’s clearly too well-mannered to glare at him, but she is…dismissive, at best. That is, until Feruza says that she remembers having watched Baranovskaya in her presentation classes and describes how Lilia’s performance as the Swan Queen had affected Feruza’s own interpretation of Drigo’s revision of Tchaikovsky’s score, when she’d played for her performing arts school’s production of the ballet the previous fall.

Lilia Baranovskaya’s ensuing interrogation of Feruza’s history—Yuri and Otabek stand a few feet behind, trading looks saying _are you fucking seeing this?_ and _look, I'm_ _surprised too_ —isn’t particularly gracious, but at the end she says grandly, “Miss Altin, your discernment serves your considerable talent well, and I hope to see you go far in your chosen path. Do enjoy your remaining time in the city.” She looks at Otabek then and nods, the acidity of her eyes neutralized a little. “Mr. Altin, I thank you for introducing me to this young woman.” Then she flicks a glance at Yuri. “Barre at ten tomorrow.”

And she sails away in her marabou-trimmed slippers.

Feruza turns, eyes wide—even she can be star-struck, apparently—and Yuri demands, “Are you a _witch_?”

“You _live_ with _Lilia Baranovskaya_ ,” she breathes.

“Yeah. It sucks. Come meet Potya.”

***

Nine days later, they set up a Skype call for the Grand Prix assignment announcements. Otabek includes Feruza, because he can, and because observing the dynamic between Yuri and Feruza is too entertaining to pass up.

“Oi, we both got Rostelecom,” Yuri says. “You can meet my grandpa.”

“Sure,” Otabek replies. In the second window on his laptop screen, Feruza sings, “Guess who’s at Skate Canadaaaaa…”

Yuri says, “Yeah, so the Katsudon’s there,” and Otabek is deeply grateful. “Be nice to him, he wants to invite you to his wedding.”

“That’s not who I—”

Otabek glares at his sister and says, “Feru, I _know_.”

“Who’s she talking about?” Yuri demands.

“Lee. South Korea.” He has no real reason not to provide the information. Just as he has no reason whatsoever to contextualize it.

Yuri taps his chin for a moment, trying to place the name, before he says, “Oh, parrot guy,” and waves one hand dismissively. “Whatever. You’ll beat him.”

“Wait,” Otabek says, Yuri’s previous statement catching up with him. “Katsuki—”

“Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” Yuri interrupts. “Anything good there?”

“Moose,” Feruza yells from her window. “Cheese.”

“Not useful,” Yuri yells back; his mouth is nearer his microphone and his voice crackles hard out of Otabek’s speakers. He winces, rubbing at one ear, and Yuri pulls a face before muttering, “Sorry.”

“Used to it,” he replies, rueful. “But the scheduling is pretty tight for qualifiers anyway. You won’t have much time to notice what there isn’t to do there.”

“Otash,” Feruza says, “are you finally bringing out your _project_ this year?”

Yuri tips his head slightly, eyes narrowing. “Project?”

Otabek exhales before saying, “Feruza, I’m prepping New World.”

“You’ve _also_ been running—”

Of _course_ he’s been running his secret program, but he’s been doing that since juniors. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

“ _What_ project?” Yuri demands.

“Nothing important,” Otabek replies, just as Feruza says gleefully, “It’s his _baby_.”

“Feru, I know where you sleep.”

“So? I know where _you_ sleep.”

“I’m closer to the parents than you. Easier access to baby pictures.”

Feruza starts threatening him in Kazakh, which is amusing, but also familiar enough that he can kind of check out while he’s looking over the rest of the GP qualifier assignments, in between the windows with Yuri and Feruza and his own webcam’s output. At Skate America, Yuri’s facing Viktor Nikiforov, Leo de la Iglesia, Micky Crispino, and some French debut; they’re the only ones worth attention. In Canada, Otabek is against Katsuki Yuuri and Lee Seung-gil, as noted, plus JJ, Chulanont, and that Belgian who’d gotten a stick up his ass at last year’s Skate America. Rostelecom has Ji Guanghong, Giacometti, Nekola, and a German. Katsuki’s second qualifier is the Trophée Bompard, with Giacometti; Viktor and Lee will both be at NHK. JJ Leroy finishes at the Cup of China, against Ji and Chulanont and Nekola, which will at least be interesting.

Yuri finally says, “Would you at _least_ argue in a language I understand?”

Otabek takes Feruza’s silence as an opportunity. “Yuri. You said Katsuki Yuuri wants to invite me to his _wedding?_ ”

“Oh, right. I made him invite you so I'd be in the old man’s crew. Party. Whatever. But Katsuki was all—” Yuri rolls his eyes and flutters his fingers— “‘oh, what a lovely idea,’ so it’s not like he’s opposed. You got along while you were in Piter.”

“ _Otash_ ,” Feruza says sternly, “you are _going_.”

He brushes that aside to make sure he’s heard correctly. “You’re one of Nikiforov’s groomsmen?”

“Did I not just say that? Anyway, see you at Rostelecom. And in—” He checks. “Barcelona, again. I’m _keeping_ that title, even if you’re ranked higher.”

“I’m ranked higher for two days of performance—”

Yuri buries his face in his hands and groans loudly. “Not this again.”

“He’s always like this,” Feruza says in sympathy, and sticks her tongue out at Otabek. “You should have heard him after Worlds in 2014.”

“Glad I didn’t,” Yuri replies from his window.

“You’re both ridiculous,” says Otabek.

They chorus, “So?” and crack up at each other.

“You’re lucky I like you.”

Yuri grins his shark smile at Otabek as Feruza says, “You _have_ to like me, I’m your _sister_ —”

***

In Milwaukee, Yuri takes silver, less than a point below Nikiforov and more than six above de la Iglesia.

He suspects he’d be less surface-calm about this if ninety percent of his fury weren’t directed at his traitor body. At his costume fitting two weeks before flying to Wisconsin, he measured two full inches taller than he had in mid-May. His arms and legs are longer, shoulders and chest broader—the uptick in generalized low-level pain in the last five months and the _wrongness_ of jumps he’s had clean for years had clicked into sudden portentous context as Lizveta exclaimed and re-measured. It’s not enough that anyone can tell by looking at him, yet, but his own _person_ is declaring invisible war on him, and he’s been suppressing a scream for the last sixteen days.

He and Yakov have been planning for how he’ll handle messy jumps since they started working on this season’s programs, because that’s how Yakov works, but ever since that costume fitting they’ve felt less like safeguards and more like desperate contingency plans. He’d hated practicing the what-if scenarios _so much_ last season; he remembers saying, “But I’m not _going_ to mess up,” like it was a betrayal for Yakov to suggest such a thing. For his two competitive skates in the last thirty hours, of course, those contingencies had saved his performances; he feels mixed gratitude and sickness for needing them.

And he sort of wants to punch himself from last year.

He’s usually ambivalent about getting off the ice, out of skates, into clothes that aren’t meant for warm-ups or performance, but this time he feels a rush of relief—quickly subsumed by horror at himself. He _lives_ on the ice; he’s spent two-thirds of his waking hours on or around ice; who is Yuri Plisetsky if he doesn’t want to skate? He feels a lump rise in his throat, a combination of panic and the urge to cry; he ignores it, shoves his hands into the pockets of his leopard-print bomber jacket (bought two sizes too big three years ago; the sleeves are almost the right length now), and keeps his head down on his way back to the hotel. Yakov mutters about difficult ages, Lilia about grace under pressure. Nikiforov simply tells him congratulations, uninflected, no hidden meaning, no stealth pity. He congratulates the old man in return, which earns him a look of such pure shock that he nearly laughs.

The French debut skater, Alain something, waylays him in the hotel lobby, inviting him to hang out. Caught off-guard, he agrees, and then tries to take it back, but realizes that, in the absence of other activity, he’s just going to sit very still in his dark hotel room, listening to something with a lot of screaming and telling his body to stop _doing things_. So he follows Alain.

“Hang out” is code for about a dozen eighteen-and-unders of assorted genders and nationalities draped around one hotel room, sharing a smuggled handle of something pretending it’s vodka. He’s the highest-ranked—at present—in the room, but in this mood he doesn’t give a shit. None of the others seem to, either.

While he only has a mouthful of the disgusting not-vodka ( _whipped cream flavoring_ —he texts a photo of the label to Otabek) for form’s sake—he’s skating in the exhibition tomorrow, after all—he ends up playing… it’s not even a game. Not truth-or-dare, because there’s only one option and the dare is predetermined, but also not really spin-the-bottle, because the bottle keeps getting snagged by internationally ranked figure skaters with extremely confused taste buds. It’s just turn-based kissing with varying degrees of enthusiasm (although couples who make out for more than a minute get stuff thrown at them or systematically ignored); between turns, people talk shit about their teammates or rinkmates or each other, discuss music, bitch about tutoring, and attempt to track the plot of a superhero movie that’s playing on the room’s TV. He doesn’t know whose room it is. He knows he doesn’t care.

By the time he makes it back to his room at 2AM, he has his first two dozen kisses out of the way.

Better yet, no one’s realized they _were_ his first.

He glares at his reflection— _taller_ , and his cheekbones are sharper, _and_ a zit is in its infancy on his chin—as he brushes his teeth; the artificial whipped cream taste clings to the back of his tongue. He’d been nothing like sheltered, having possessed Internet access and the bad luck to share a rink with Mila and Georgi and Viktor fucking Nikiforov since he was six or seven; it’s just that kissing and assorted related activities had never held sufficient relevance or interest for him to actually seek them out. Now that that’s changed, he supposes he should develop an opinion about them, or something. The phrase that comes to mind is _intriguingly gross_ , although some dude from a Swiss pairs team, Alain, and a ladies’ singles from Norway had each tipped the scale much more in the _intriguing_ direction.

As the hot coily feeling in his lower abdomen would like to note.

If _that’s_ part of the growth spurt thing, and if the growth spurt thing weren’t fucking up his skating, he might learn not to hate it so much.

He spits bloody foam into the sink and mutters, “Learning experience, Plisetsky.”

***

[October 24, 2015, 23:14 CDT, Milwaukee, WI, USA/October 25, 2015, 10:14, ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

 **yuri_plisetsky:** (image of Pinnacle Whipped label)  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ???????? :(((((  
**otabek_a:** ah. condolences.

[23:36 CDT/10:36 ALMT]

 **otabek_a:** wait. during the season??

[October 25, 2015, 02:08 CDT/13:08 ALMT]

 **yuri_plisetsky:** reasons i only had 1 shot  
**yuri_plisetsky:** 1-9. horrible  
**yuri_plisetsky:** 10\. skate tmrw  
**yuri_plisetsky:** today w/e  
**otabek_a:** I was worried for a bit.

***

It’s going to take Otabek most of the night to come to terms with having outscored Katsuki Yuuri.

JJ messed up his knee four days before Skate Canada; it’s not clear yet whether he’s out for the whole season, but the Grand Prix series is a no, and the debut Canadian who's taken his place isn't going to be interesting for another couple years. Chulanont is still about two dozen points below Katsuki, but Otabek is one point _above_ , which—he doesn’t know how to feel. He’s not certain about Lee Seung-gil standing in the center of the podium, either, but frustration at not having been half a point better is at least familiar. Medaling _above Katsuki_ , though…

He keeps his head up and his answers short through the photos and interviews, Karim at his elbow muttering a mix of rude comments in Kazakh and praise in English. He _beat Katsuki Yuuri_ , for fuck’s sake.

When the press disappears and he’s back in his street clothes, he finds Viktor Nikiforov and Katsuki—both at the tail end of ten days in North America, for the sake of convenience; Yuri’s been rejoicing via text about the peacefulness of the rink—standing in the arena lobby, talking with Karim. They’re comparing notes on Lethbridge bars, which somehow segues to Otabek occupying the corner of a booth with skating royalty across from him, his coach next to him, and a whiskey sour on the table in front of him. He’s half-giddy, half-confused, but keeps it in check somehow and manages to act normally. Mostly normally.

Katsuki asks what his sister is up to, how he and Karim had picked his music for the season, where he used to hang out when he was in Detroit, if he was able to DJ much in the off-season. Otabek answers as well as he can while putting his brain back together, which is apparently sufficient, because Katsuki smiles warmly, telling stories about what he used to get up to in Michigan and asking him to pass on well wishes to Feruza for her upcoming solo performance.

At around that point, Viktor Nikiforov—who’s been deep in conversation with Karim about coaching, museums, and some art film director—checks his phone and says suddenly, “Otabek Altin, it’s your birthday! For another eleven minutes. In this time zone, anyway.”

He’d forgotten. He’s nineteen now. “Yeah,” he replies, and immediately kicks himself mentally for being pathetic, but the paltriness of his response is neatly buried by Nikiforov calling in full voice for a toast to medals and birthdays. By the power of Nikiforov, the entire bar ends up toasting Otabek and Katsuki. Yuuri blushes through it and shoots a half-apologetic look to Otabek; he can only shrug and force down the bubble of laughter rising in his chest.

They get back to the hotel a bit past midnight. Nikiforov shakes his hand and declares it a pleasure to have celebrated with him before telling Karim he looks forward to seeing him in Moscow. Yuuri nods happily at Karim and then turns to Otabek.

“I’m really glad we got to talk!” he says, beaming. “Yurio being your friend and all—I mean, it’s good to know other skaters in any case, but especially when they’re friends.”

Otabek makes a noise that might be assent.

“See you at breakfast!” And Katsuki Yuuri, who may have just described Otabek as a friend of his—if Otabek could strangle English grammar, he would; its ambiguity deserves it—gives a little wave and another smile and steps into the elevator after Nikiforov.

Otabek and Karim make their way to the stairs; they’re only on the second floor. “I feel blinded,” Karim says. “Viktor Nikiforov.”

“I know.”

“You’re collecting Russians. First Plisetsky, then Babicheva—”

“Katsuki’s Japanese,” Otabek points out. He only had the one drink, but he feels every molecule of it.

“Russia-based skaters, then. In any case, good people. But sort of a change in your M.O., yeah?”

They’re on the stairs and Karim’s in front, so shrugging won’t do any good; he makes another vague noise in his throat. Karim laughs as he holds the stairwell door for Otabek. “Well, good networking. How are you feeling about tomorrow?”

“New World,” he replies, which is enough for Karim. His coach claps him on the shoulder and lets the door to his room fall shut.

As he walks up the hall toward his own room, someone steps out of the elevators and crosses the hallway. They’re standing in front of Otabek’s door, he realizes; they knock twice and let their hand drop.

“Lee,” Otabek says. Lee Seung-gil turns; his eyes flash once as Otabek draws even and pulls his keycard out of his jacket pocket. “What’s up,” he adds, the words poised midway between a greeting and a question, as the door clicks open.

Lee’s jaw clenches, then relaxes, and he says, voice soft and even as always, “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” He’s _wired_ and half-drunk—his alcohol tolerance is shit at baseline, and it drops to nothing during the season. And if the year-long thread of cryptically suggestive text-only direct messages on his phone is anything to go by, he has a reasonable idea why Lee—okay, Seung-gil—is here. He drops his bag by the wall, hangs up his biker jacket, kicks off his boots, and turns to find Seung-gil standing just in front of the closed door. “Well?” he prompts.

May as well make the guy work for it.

Seung-gil audibly sucks in a breath, then lets it out. “I’m emotionally compro—”

“You won,” he interrupts. Although he mentally awards points for not fixing what isn’t broken.

“I did,” says Seung-gil, emotionless. “And yet.”

Otabek quirks his eyebrow and sits himself at the foot of his bed. Seung-gil takes one measured step away from the door, further into the room, and waits until Otabek looks at him, then says, “Okay. I suck at flirting. Do you want to—” He seems to run out of words.

“Hmm.” Otabek tips his head, considering, and asks, “Want me to play dumb and make you say it?”

Seung-gil blinks and shifts his weight. “Fuck you.”

This is _too_ easy. “Bad plan. Unless we both beg off the exhibition tomorrow.”

Something gives him away; Seung-gil’s hands have been clenched into fists, but now they relax as he says, “Wasn’t really what I had in mind, anyway.”

“No,” Otabek replies, mock-thoughtfully, “seems like you just want to stand there and talk circles around it. Let me know when you decide to change that.”

Half-drunk Otabek is a _jerk_ , he realizes, and that’s all he has time for, because Seung-gil is very suddenly straddling him, although not resting any weight on him—he has one hand pressed to the center of Otabek’s chest and the other on his shoulder. “Decided,” he says, and his face is still blank but his eyes are glittering. “Yes or no?”

For answer, Otabek lifts his hands to Seung-gil’s hips and pulls him closer, which makes him lose his balance and resettle his weight so he’s properly in Otabek’s lap, which makes it very easy indeed to determine the interest level of both parties involved.

Except Seung-gil jerks his head back, eyes narrowed. “You’ve been drinking.”

“One drink,” he corrects. And adds, inanely, “It was my birthday.”

“That’s right, it was.” Seung-gil holds his gaze for another half-second, then shrugs. “Happy birthday, loser.”

Seung-gil’s mouth meets his; his fingers ghost up Otabek’s neck and then down, beneath the collar of his t-shirt. The rushed desperation of last year is gone; Seung-gil is taking his sweet time, and there’s a year of sporadic obfuscated flirting overlaid with insults between them. While Seung-gil is doing something very interesting with tongue and teeth just below his ear, Otabek mutters, “Three-tenths of a point. Watch your back.”

Laughter, almost silent, less heard than felt as a breath against that spot on his neck. “Still won,” Seung-gil replies, and bites.

Around the time Seung-gil pushes Otabek flat against the mattress with his shirt rucked up around his ribs, around the time Seung-gil starts nipping at the skin above his hip, Otabek decides he’s done caring about banter.

***

He wakes up with a headache some hours later; the overhead light is still on and Seung-gil is sound asleep to his left, lying on his back and head to one side with about three-quarters of the quilt bundled around him. In sleep he is almost exactly as he is awake: blank, with the addition of snoring.

Otabek gets up, but apparently not carefully enough: Seung-gil jolts awake, sitting up and blinking from his heap of blanket.

“Shit,” is the first thing he says.

“You snore,” replies Otabek, as he digs his phone out of the pocket of his hoodie (presently on the floor).

“Fuck off.” Seung-gil untangles himself from the quilt. “What time is it?”

“Past three. You’re also a blanket thief.”

“Fuck _off_ ,” he says again, but he sounds almost fond as he fishes for his jeans.  Otabek plugs his phone into its charger and downs three cups of tap water in rapid succession.

Seung-gil is fully dressed when Otabek, still wearing boxers only, leaves the bathroom. “Okay,” says Seung-gil, as if continuing a conversation, and then he hits a mental wall. “Um.”

“Did this happen?” Otabek asks as he checks his texts.

[November 1, 2015, 01:22 MDT, Lethbridge, AB, Canada/10:22 MKS, St. Petersburg, Russia]

 **yuri_plisetsky:** u shldv won  
**yuri_plisetsky:** grats beating katsudon tho  
**yuri_plisetsky:** he sed u got drinks  
**yuri_plisetsky:** called u “interesting, easygoing, with hidden depths” (c/p)  
**yuri_plisetsky:** which like compared to nikiforov ur p much baikal

His brain is cheese. He doesn’t respond, just sets an alarm for nine AM.

“What? Oh, sure, it happened,” says Seung-gil. “I guess.”

“All right.”

Seung-gil stands there for a moment, silent, until Otabek looks at him. “I’m going,” he says, once they’ve made eye contact.

“All right,” Otabek repeats.

Seung-gil makes an incomprehensible noise and closes the distance between them to kiss him, close-mouthed. “You’re good.”

“You’re _really_ bad at flirting,” replies Otabek, and kisses him back while he’s still figuring out which variety of nothing to do with his face. “But otherwise okay. Considering.”

“Jesus. Fuck you.”

“Maybe after 4CC.”

He makes another noise—exasperated, but there’s a laugh in it—and leaves. Otabek flips off the lights and goes back to bed, just about satisfied. Especially because he has the quilt to himself.

***

[November 2, 2015, 02:37 MKS/November 1, 2015, 16:37 MDT]

 **yuri_plisetsky:** ur ex skate music sounds like star wars  
**otabek_a:** please, please, please repeat that the next time you and feruza are in the same place.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ??  
**otabek_a:** I will pay any resulting medical bills.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ok ignoring that ur weird  
**yuri_plisetsky:** good skting  
**yuri_plisetsky:** wats up w u  & lee  
**otabek_a:** what?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** he like smiled while u were on  
**yuri_plisetsky:** i didnt kno he cld  
**otabek_a:** huh.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** \+ u talked after  
**yuri_plisetsky:** didnt kno u were frenz  
**otabek_a:** I didn’t either.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ugh ur banging or sth arnt u  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ok its been 3 min. im right arent i  
**otabek_a:** what.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** im so right  
**otabek_a** : did you talk to feruza???  
**yuri_plisetsky:** HA  
**otabek_a:** oh damn it.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** CONFIRMED  
**yuri_plisetsky:** & no i didnt ur doin the same thing mila did abt sara  
**yuri_plisetsky:** dw ur fine no one else wld guess  
**yuri_plisetsky:** im just a fckn genius  
**yuri_plisetsky:** anyway w/e dw i dont gossip just dont b gross abt it  
**otabek_a:** I am never gross.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** u kno i almost believe u  
**yuri_plisetsky:** does he do faces when  
**yuri_plisetsky:** NVM DONT WANNA KNO  
**otabek_a:** jesus, yuri.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** so wats ur project, the gala wasnt it  
**otabek_a:** that’s for me to know and you to find out.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** wow ok  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ANYWAY enuf abt u  
**yuri_plisetsky:** kno wat sux  
**yuri_plisetsky:**  GROWTH SPURTS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My envisioned music for Yuri's SP and FS: Shostakovich's string quartet no. 8, mvt. III, and a selection from Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto. Otabek's exhibition skate is from Dvořák's New World Symphony. Lizveta is playing the Orgy albums Candyass and Punk Statik Paranoia during her first costuming session with Yuri.
> 
> Part II...I'm not sure when it'll be up, but there's plenty more fun this season.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


	2. want it all; can't have it

[November 19, 2015, 11:05 MSK, Moscow, Russia]

**yuri_plisetsky:** ey im in lobby find me b4 moscow angels do  
**otabek_a:** there in a sec.  
**otabek_a:** please tell me there’s coffee nearby.

He feels light and content as he slides his phone into his jacket pocket and slings his bag over his shoulder. “Karim, I’m headed out. Back by—”

“Whenever you feel like,” his coach finishes for him. “Take a damn day off, Altin.”

Otabek stops mid-step and looks at Karim. “You’re… sending me out to play?”

“Want me to make it coach’s orders?” Karim balls up the printout of the practice session schedule and makes to throw it at him. “Get outta here.”

He gets.

The building is quiet. It’s the official Rostelecom hotel, except they picked a horrendously early flight for budgeting purposes—most of his competitors and their coaches won’t appear until night. Otabek’s personal clock is in freefall from the time change and the lack of sleep, but here it’s just late morning on a Thursday; the lobby is nearly empty and distinctly lacking in animal print-clad teenagers.

An older woman is paging through a fashion magazine in the main seating area. There should be an empty armchair next to her, based on the rest of the setup, but instead, there are four deep indentations in the high pile of the rug and a set of tracks skittering off toward the entrance. The missing armchair is in the corner, angled toward the window and occupied by a spidery figure tangled up on the seat, dressed in grey fleece and black denim with all his tell-tale pale hair tucked beneath a black knit hat.

Yuri’s holding a steel thermos in one hand and his phone in the other, the cords to his earbuds disappearing beneath the hat. His face is—masklike, exhausted, but he notes Otabek’s approaching reflection and immediately yanks the earbuds out. “Took you long enough,” he says in English, unfolding from his seat.

There’s a lot of unfolding to do.

In June, Yuri had been shorter than him. Not significantly, but noticeably. Now they’re of a height, and it’s all in Yuri’s legs and arms, like someone took his hands and feet and yanked; he remains narrow in the shoulders and narrower still through his waist and hips. The lines of his jaw and cheekbones are sharper. If he’s gained so much as an ounce of weight, Otabek will take the hat right off his head and eat it in the lobby. It’s unclear whether the Angels would even recognize him.

Otabek watched his performances from Skate America, but distant videos of a figure on an ice rink aren’t a good way to actually see a person, and—he mentally digs—he can’t remember the last time Yuri posted a selfie, rather than practice videos or pictures of Potya or funny graffiti in St. Petersburg. There’d been a few photos of him from the awards ceremony of his first qualifier with his medal—and several more of him with Viktor Nikiforov—but they were reposted press pictures.

_Know what sucks? Growth spurts_.

But that doesn’t explain the shadows under Yuri’s eyes.

As Yuri arranges phone, earbuds, and a transit card without dropping his thermos, Otabek looks out the window and says, “Sorry. My coach had a lecture to deliver.”

“About?” Yuri gets himself sorted and glances at him.

“Making me go out and play.” He inflects it with woe. It’s the closest he personally has gotten to pouting since he was about five.

Yuri laughs outright. “How do I get him to talk to mine?”

“Ask. He’ll do it. Lilia or Yakov?”

“Either. Both.” He stretches, arms toward the ceiling, before bending backward; his spine pops about five times. “Whatever. They don’t get in ‘til later today. My grandpa’s two bus rides out. I got your fare.”

“I could—”

“Nah, I got it. You said coffee? I mean, I’d share but—”

Otabek looks pointedly at the thermos. “That’s not coffee. It’s liquid sugar that’s been in the same room as a coffee bean. Once.”

“Yeah,” says Yuri without protest, and takes a drink. “There’s a shop up the street.”

In another ten minutes, they’re on the first bus leg and Otabek is working on his third black coffee (the way it should be) since he woke up at three AM in Almaty. Yuri is splayed out on the seat next to him with characteristic gracelessness, feet up, scrolling through his Instagram feed. The silence between them is companionable until Yuri shoves his phone at him; the screen shows a ten-second video of Lee Seung-gil doing a quad loop in practice, posted a couple days beforehand. “When’d _that_ start?”

Something tightens in his chest. He deadpans, “It was ratified in 2012 at 4CC.” Yuri knocks his shoulder against Otabek’s arm, the bone digging into Otabek’s bicep despite multiple layers of outerwear. “Ow. You’re pointy.”

“No shit. Tell me.”

“Uh.” Otabek passes one hand over his eyes; the concept of explaining the _thing_ between him and Seung-gil, if there even is one—their last message exchange of “why aren’t you at the banquet.” “I left early.” “loser.” barely meets standards for civility, let alone affection—hadn’t occurred to him until…well, now. And explaining to Yuri, two and a half years younger, living only and entirely for skating—his stomach twists, half embarrassment and half disproportionate anxiety, because apparently a year-ish of friendship isn’t enough to get used to niceties like _telling people things_. “Last year. NHK,” he manages, and turns his face away.

“Really.” Yuri’s voice is too gravelly and the background noise of the bus too loud for Otabek to read his tone.

“Hooked up. And again at Skate Canada. That’s it. Okay?” He swallows another mouthful of coffee and forces himself to count silently as he breathes, five on the exhale, five on the inhale.

Yuri shoulders him again, this time just a nudge. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and if he were anyone but Yuri his voice would be gentle. Otabek glances over, surprised, but Yuri straightens suddenly and says, “Changing routes next stop. My first rink is close, if you wanna see.”

***

On the bus over from his grandpa’s that morning—he’d flown in the previous night to stay with him (and sneak in half an hour of ice time at his old rink)—Yuri had finally figured out that the weird fluttering in his stomach was nervousness.

Generally, he is immune to nerves, aside from people getting on his. Stage fright is something that happens to other people. Performances just mean he has to do a handful of crowd-pleasing gestures that _are not_ skating. Meeting new people happens to him more frequently than running into old acquaintances—every competition is a new set of rivals. His few sponsorship meetings so far have registered as means to the end of skating _while making money_ , and with that in mind, they’re just another kind of performance.

However, the concept of introducing his best friend—he will no longer say his _only_ friend, because Feruza Altin texted him after Skate Canada to freak out about Otabek outscoring the Katsudon, as did the Katsudon himself, and while he’s being honest, he knows that Mila’s a better friend than he should ever hope to share a rink with—to his grandfather, his _family_ , is very different. Performance is pointless around them, because they both see through it. Which is understandable with Grandpa, but he’s been in the same _city_ as Otabek all of five times now, and the first didn’t count because he still can’t remember telling anyone that he’d break ballet studio mirrors with their face, no matter how much he tries, although he’s stored the wording for future reference if needed.

Regardless, Otabek Altin simply does not accept his bullshit. He just waits until Yuri’s done pretending he knows what he’s doing and then, only then, says what Yuri _actually_ needs to hear, or leads him to saying what he needs to, without acting like he’s somehow better for it. Then sends him links to videos of cats yawning synched to death metal vocals.

So he’s going to have the two people most aware of Yuri minus his armor in the same room, and both of them are important to him, more than he can quantify, and if they don’t _like_ each other Yuri is going to actually voice that scream that’s been building since early October.

He needs rink time to burn it off. “I have practice skates here,” he says to Otabek as they get off the bus; Otabek’s shoulders have finally relaxed, for the first time since Yuri asked about that Lee guy, which is a goddamn relief even as he mentally notes that it’s weird. “Want to? The entire crew hasn’t descended on the city yet, and it’s a weekday, so it should be quiet.” He’s talking too fast.

“Sure,” says Otabek.

They lace up in silence, his sneakers and plain black bomber and Otabek’s boots, bag, and biker jacket in Yuri’s locker (labeled as such in tiger-striped duct tape). The rink is pretty near empty—a retired guy from pairs is doing something fancy but low-key in the center of the ice, and there’s one class of babies (okay, six-year-olds) practicing spins. He and Otabek stay level in their first lap, while Yuri negotiates with his body exactly what it’s going to let him do right now without embarrassing himself. After he whirls cleanly through a double axel (in street clothes, with blessings to whoever started putting 5% Lycra in denim), he can’t suppress a grin. _Fuck you, growth spurts_. Crossovers to build speed, then a triple toe loop—nailed. If he can keep this up for the next two days, he’s going to Barcelona again.

Otabek is more subdued, probably because he’s not wearing super-stretch anything, but he crossovers into a death drop—which isn’t in _any_ of his programs—followed by a camel spin that he pulls into an upright, before he stops and asks Yuri, “How’s my free leg?”

“Acceptable. Ish.” He checks his phone. “Oi—let’s get going.” Lunch at Nikolai Plisetsky’s house isn’t formal, but Grandpa starts grumbling if he has to wait past 12:30.

As he’s pulling his boots on—Yuri is already stretching—Otabek says suddenly, “You’re doing good.” He’s not looking at Yuri, so he doesn’t see Yuri start to say _of course I’m fucking good_ , but adds, “Considering that growth spurts suck.”

Yuri groans, but replies, “They’re fucking _inconvenient._ ”

“Not part of the schedule,” says Otabek sternly, and Yuri barks a laugh. “Mine were—what, I was twelve for the first, fifteen for the second. Still waiting on my third.”

“ _Third_?” Yuri stares at him, horrified. “Waiting on? You’re nineteen—”

“My dad didn’t stop growing ‘til he was twenty-two.”

“Fuck.” He checks his phone again. “You ready to go?”

“Whenever you are.”

The second bus trip is easier. Some of the stomach fluttering disappeared on the ice, and now Otabek is talking, as much as he ever does. “My second season in juniors was hell. Grew two inches between the GP and 4CC. Just—lost two-thirds of my jumps, spent the entire time trying to get them back.” He glances at Yuri, half a question in the way his eyebrows are angled.

Yuri exhales hard and leans his head back, counting rivets on the bus ceiling. “I got lucky. GP qualifiers being spaced out—there’s been time to get my shit together, sort of. Nikiforov’s been helping.”

Otabek huffs a laugh. “You’ve been letting him?”

“Better than ruining my records,” Yuri says, eyeing him sidelong, and does not add _duh_. “When he has an actual _problem_ to solve, the geezer’s good. When he’s not flapping around being a one-man soap opera and yelling about wedding shit.” He thinks. “Actually, last time that happened was before Skate America. The Katsudon must’ve told him to keep it off the ice. I would’ve, if he were my _coach_.”

“And not just your annoying rinkmate.”

“I told him _plenty_. He doesn’t listen unless it’s Katsuki. We’re the next stop.”

He’s nervous again, looking at his grandpa’s— _his_ —neighborhood like he’s seeing it for the first time. Blocky utilitarian apartment buildings with balconies crammed with stuff, everything discolored by age and pollution; there’s an excuse of a park on the walk from the bus stop to his grandpa’s building, but in mid-November it’s just more greys and browns. The tiny grocery store—

“Shit,” says Otabek suddenly. “I should—what can I bring your grandfather?”

“What?”

“As thanks for having me. Does he—I don’t know, chocolate?”

“He _does_ chocolate, in fact,” says Yuri. “You grammar better in Russian.”

“Two minutes,” Otabek says, ignoring the jab—which is fine; Yuri’s done better—and goes into the tiny grocery store. He emerges ninety-five seconds later with a Babaevsky box. “Okay.”

Less than fifty steps later, Yuri leads him into the apartment building where he grew up, then up the three flights of stairs, then halfway down the dimly lit hall. He fishes his keys out of his jeans pocket and unlocks the door into the two-room apartment. “Quick, there’s cats.”

Otabek moves past him into the living room; by the time Yuri has the door closed and locked, the cats are investigating his boots and Grandpa is standing in the kitchen entrance.

“About _time_ , Yurochka.” It’s a fake grumble; he’s squinting a smile.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, slipping back into Russian. “We stopped at my old rink for a little. Dedushka, please meet my friend Otabek Altin. Otabek, this is—”

“Kolya,” Grandpa interrupts, and closes the four-step distance from the kitchen entrance to the apartment’s door, hand out to shake. Otabek hands him the chocolates instead, and Grandpa smiles outright. “Good to meet my grandson’s kidnapper.”

“He was _helping_ me,” Yuri protests, but Grandpa is still smiling.

“Glad to meet you, sir,” says Otabek, and adds, voice grave, “I do apologize for the kidnapping.”

“Ended well enough,” Grandpa replies with a shrug. “Come in, eat—”

Lunch is— _easy_ , effortless, and Yuri’s nervous energy doesn’t know what to do with itself. Otabek and Grandpa are talking about football—he didn’t even know Otabek followed it—and then about Almaty and Ufa and Detroit and Montreal. Grandpa’s left Moscow maybe four or five times in his life and he wants to know everything. He asks about Feruza, about her training and travel and performances, and about Karim as a person and his museums thing. The cats wander in and out, nosing at everyone’s feet; they know Yuri’s an easy mark who’ll slip them chicken every time he feels one nudge his calf, but he catches Otabek doing the same—and so does Grandpa.

“Cat person?”

“A bit,” says Otabek, who Yuri distinctly remembers having spent ten minutes nose-to-nose with Potya, telling her (correctly) that she was the prettiest princess.

“Explains why you like Yurochka.” Grandpa grins at him.

He and Otabek glance at each other as Yuri is serving himself seconds of everything (he and Yakov retooled his training diet with a nutritionist, because he is _starving always_ ); he crosses his eyes and Otabek says, “Might be one reason.”

When they’re finished with the food, Otabek immediately volunteers to help with the dishes. Not to be outdone, Yuri says they’ll take care of cleanup altogether. Grandpa raises his eyebrows at Yuri, who raises one back, thinking something pointed about the mouths of gift horses. Then he just says, “Thank you, gentlemen,” and goes to the living room to watch TV.

After the dishes are done and the leftovers dealt with, they hang out in Yuri’s childhood room, which still has his novice trophies and medals and whatever on the same bookcase as his Harry Potter books and comic collection. More accurately, Otabek hangs out, sitting easily at the small desk chair, while Yuri wanders around the little space as much as he can wander, still restless and babbling about anything that comes to mind. Growth spurts, refitting his costumes _again_ three days ago (Lizveta played EDM; he got the album names from her and has been listening to them nonstop), Nikiforov flailing about color schemes and _fonts_ , how dumb it is that he’s held on to his poster of Nikiforov from when he was five—

“Yuri,” says Otabek, and Yuri stills and looks over. “Okay? You’re a bit…”

“My grandpa’s all I got,” he blurts, an utter non-sequitur.

Otabek doesn’t say anything; he just sits and watches Yuri.

“I mean, not money, there’s—my mother’s not completely useless, just—but I don’t—” Yuri shrugs wildly. “I’m not—” He stops, because his throat is tightening into tears for no reason, and heaves a breath, staring at the faded rug.

A moment passes before Otabek speaks. “Should I—”

“You’re fine,” Yuri interrupts. “I just—You’re my friend and he’s my family and there’s only one each of you? And if you didn’t like each other—”

“He’s great,” says Otabek.

“I know—” too distracted for pride— “and he doesn’t _do_ jokes unless he likes people, so it’s fine, everything’s fine, I just—” He shakes his head hard and tries to route this _sentimentality_ into irritation.

Otabek is still watching him, level and calm, and he says, carefully, “You’ve got others, Yuri.”

“Yakov doesn’t count.”

“I do. I think.”

Yuri hears himself make a strangled noise, a quarter of a sob, and falls backwards onto the mattress of his twin-size bed, covered with the quilt Grandma Rozalina had made for him. She’d started when he was eighteen months and put it on this bed here, in what used to be the guest room, when he was three, when it had become clear that this time his mother wasn’t going to be coming back anytime soon. “ _Mood swings_ ,” he spits, through the tightness in his throat. “ _Fuck_ adolescence. My _life_ hurts.”

“It does that sometimes,” Otabek says, so solemnly that Yuri has to laugh.

He lies there for a moment, looking up at the cracks in the ceiling that used to be roads on a map of a country that only existed in his little-kid head. It’s quiet, just traffic noise and the TV in the living room, and Yuri feels the tension drip slowly away from his shoulders and spine. He puts one fist to the side of his chin and cracks his neck, three pops that resonate in his skull.

“That’s almost impressive,” says Otabek. “And gross.”

Yuri looks over. “You were doing a thing with a death drop at the rink. What was _that_?” Because it definitely wasn’t any of Otabek’s actual programs.

Otabek stretches his arms, fingers interlaced and pushing at the air. “Project,” he says, which is useless.

“Secret project?”

“Maybe.”

“What is it? Come on, tell me.”

“You and Feruza are going to kill me.” His voice is fond.

“Irritate you into an early grave.”

His friend sighs noisily and Yuri grins.

***

On the twenty-first, Otabek stands at the right of the Rostelecom podium. He and Yuri are precisely tied, but Yuri’s free skate score is a smidgen higher and his own short program the same smidgen lower.

The press loses its shit, which is fine; Otabek is happy to pose for photo after photo with Yuri, a couple with medals swapped for the hell of it, several with their coaches, and a really good one with Yuri’s grandfather. Kolya mutters, “You’re good for him; thanks for that kidnapping,” before he gives Yuri another hug, and it’s the best piece of feedback Otabek’s ever heard.

They both qualify for the final—them and Katsuki Yuuri, who’d taken gold at the Trophée Bompard. Ji Guanghong, bronze medalist by five or six points (he’s been _working_ ) won’t know until after NHK the next weekend, but it’s looking good, considering his scores from Cup of China. Granted, NHK’s flooded with powerhouses—Nikiforov, Giacometti, Seung-gil, Crispino. Considering that Ji nearly exploded with joy having made it onto the podium at Rostelecom, he’s probably plenty satisfied.

“Regular reunion in December,” says Yuri that Sunday. “No matter who makes it.”

“I’m borrowing Javier’s bike again,” Otabek says, looking up from his phone. They’d both abandoned the banquet early in favor of hanging out in Yuri’s hotel room, where he’s lying flat on the floor in his pajamas and a hoodie, complaining at intervals that he can feel his legs lengthening.

“Good,” Yuri says.

“Got a DJ set too.”

“ _Good_.”

***

Nikiforov, Seung-gil, and Giacometti qualify on the 28th of November. A week later, Seung-gil fractures his wrist and withdraws. Ji Guanghong takes his place on the roster, his social media posts striking a perfect balance between sympathy for the injury and anticipation for the unexpected opportunity. At least, Otabek thinks so.

Dec. 6, 22:09

**seung-gillee:** [shared post: **+guanghongji+** Saddened at **@seung-gillee** ’s unfortunate inju…]  
**seung-gillee:** you’re getting off easy this time.  
**otabek-altin:** are you getting off at all?  
**seung-gillee:** fuck you I can’t even flick off the camera  
**otabek-altin:** poor you.  
**seung-gillee:** I’m going to kill you at 4CC.  
**otabek-altin:** you said that last year. I recall outscoring you.  
**seung-gillee:** I’m going to KILL YOU at 4CC.

***

[December 7, 12:14 MSK, St. Petersburg, Russia/15:14 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

**yuri_plisetsky:** is otabek ok w/ lee dropping gpf  
**feruzaaa:** mm he txted me like “seunggil’s threatening to murder me again”  
**feruzaaa:** but i mean “again”  
**feruzaaa:** also HOW DID U FIND OUT  
**yuri_plisetsky:** lol i bluffed  
**yuri_plisetsky:** until he asked if id been talkin 2 u  
**feruzaaa:** omg PERFECT  
**feruzaaa:** anyway re lee like they arent super into each other its just like convenient? is what i understand  
**yuri_plisetsky:** o hm  
**yuri_plisetsky:** is that how eh manages a crush on katsudon @ same tiem  
**feruzaaa:** …yuri plisetsky did u know ppl can multitask in ~romance~  
**yuri_plisetsky:** wat  
**feruzaaa:** ppl can have multiple crushes on multiple ppl.  
**feruzaaa:** or multiple relationships. at the same time.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** thats  
**yuri_plisetsky:** a logistical nitemare  
**feruzaaa:** do u ever think abt anything but sk8ing??  
**yuri_plisetsky:** once  
**yuri_plisetsky:** few months ago  
**feruzaaa:** i DESPAIR

***

Katsuki Yuuri, bronze medal setting off the silvery-green top of his free skate costume, stands alongside Yuri and elbows him gently. “Yurio—you’re okay?”

Yuri tears his gaze away from the Kazakh reporters throwing a fucking party right there next to the rink and Otabek, laughing, showing teeth and everything, at their center. “I’m _amazing_ ,” he says, and he’s pretty sure he means it. His quad Salchow, his favorite and longest-standing jump, finally betrayed him during his free skate—he should have run it in the six-minute warmup, even though it had gone okay in his short program’s combination yesterday. But silver isn’t a bad color, and the gold hanging around Otabek’s neck—after a goddamn flawless skate—almost makes up for Yuri breaking his Grand Prix streak (counting juniors). “How’s Vitya?” The diminutive comes easily, at least for the moment.

“Confused,” says Katsuki. “He’s pleased for you and Otabek, of course, because you’re friends, but I don’t think he knows what to do with himself when he’s not on the podium.”

“His first time there in, what, a decade?”

“Think so,” Katsuki replies, and his mouth curves into a tiny smirk. “The rest of us _wish_ we could have that problem.”

Yuri’s phone buzzes and he checks it absently—Feruza—then looks again as the time registers. It’s nearing eleven; Otabek’s set is scheduled for half-past, but the press conference is still waiting for Team Kazakh Sports Journalists to get with the program. “Shit—sorry, Katsudon, excuse me—”

Katsuki looks at him like he’s grown a second head, for some reason, but Yuri ignores that and finds a bench so he’ll be out of the way while he works this out.

[December 12, 22:53 CET, Barcelona, Spain/December 13, 02:53 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

**feruzaaa:** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
**yuri_plisetsky** : I KNO  
**yuri_plisetsky:** w8 its dumbass oclock there  
**feruzaaa:** R U TELLING ME TO GO TO SLEEP STFU  
**yuri_plisetsky:** no ofc not  
**yuri_plisetsky:** theyre doin like kazakh victory chants  
**feruzaaa:** AS THEY SHLD BE  
**yuri_plisetsky:** but  
**feruzaaa:** BUT WHATEVERRRR  
**yuri_plisetsky:** IK BUT  
**feruzaaa:** OTASH WON  
**yuri_plisetsky:** stfu 1 sec pls?  
**feruzaaa:** ffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine  
**yuri_plisetsky:** important ok ty  
**yuri_plisetsky:** runnin l8  & still gotta do press conf  
**yuri_plisetsky:** & his set was gonna b in like 40 min  
**yuri_plisetsky:** 34 min now  
**feruzaaa:** OH ok ok I see  
**yuri_plisetsky:** cld u giv me javier’s # so i can tell him  
**feruzaaa:** dw I’ll msg him rn

Yuri glances up and around, just as two of the reporters hoist Otabek to shoulder height and another two get Karim. They’re both grinning hugely and Karim yells something that makes Otabek dissolve in laughter. Yuri finds he’s half-smiling himself as his phone buzzes again.

[22:58 CET/02:58 ALMT]

**feruzaaa:** ok all set  
**feruzaaa:** jav’s taking the slot, nbd  
**feruzaaa:** w/ his congrats to otash  & u both  
**yuri_plisetsky:** thank u  
**yuri_plisetsky:** thank u thank u  
**feruzaaa:** np! thx 4 thinking of it otash is probs overwhelmed  
**yuri_plistesky:** [blurred photo: Otabek and Karim, carried by reporters, high-fiving each other]  
**feruzaaa:** GOD THAT’S THE BEST  
**yuri_plisetsky:** i kno!!!  
**feruzaaa:** omg he stole ur title  
**yuri_plisetsky:** w/e omelets eggs or sth

***

Only after the press conference, on the way to the lockers to change, does Otabek remember his set, and feels his stomach flip in something other than excitement. “ _Shit_ ,” he says, loudly enough that some of the people around him—skaters, coaches, spare reporters—glance at him. “Javier—”

Yuri, right behind him, says quietly, “Feruza got it handled. You’re off the hook.”

“Off the—wait, Feruza?”

“I texted her, she texted Javier, Javier took your slot. Says congratulations. To both of us, not like silver’s much of a—”

“I forgot an entire set,” Otabek says slowly, marveling. At any point before this one, he’d be freaking out—the irresponsibility, inconveniencing Javier, the embarrassment of having his little sister clean up his mess and his two-years-younger friend going behind his back to arrange it. “You could have told me.”

“Your reporters were like parading you and Karim around. Lots of chanting.” Yuri shrugs. “Didn’t want to interrupt. They might’ve dropped you.”

Still, _sometime_ between the ceremony proper and getting herded into the press room, it should have occurred to him. But didn’t. “I should feel worse about this.”

“Nah.” Yuri grabs the door to the lockers and holds it for him, which is possibly the first time he’s ever seen Yuri interact with a door on someone else’s behalf. “You’re gonna be endorphin-high ’til New Year’s.”

Otabek blinks at him. “Your streak broke,” he says; it’s the first time he’s put that together, even when Yuri bowed his head next to him to receive his silver medal. The next thought follows, of course: “ _I_ broke your streak.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Yuri growls, but he grins his shark smile as he goes off to his locker.

***

Viktor Nikiforov, ranked fourth in the 2015 Grand Prix final, is _not_ fluttering around like a giant moth with a terrible case of charisma. He’s silent, focused, moving slowly and precisely as he strips out of his costume and pulls on slacks and an undershirt and dress socks. He doesn’t look up, even when Yuri’s five feet away and rattling through his own locker, which is a mess, as usual. Nikiforov doesn’t look sad or angry or much of anything, not outright, but attempting to gauge how the old man feels based on his facial expressions is an exercise in futility, and only after Yuri has his costume zipped into its garment bag and his head through the collar of his hoodie does he say, “Oi, Vitya.”

“Yurio,” Nikiforov replies, and it’s like a switch flips: press smile, turquoise high-beams, the whole deal. “You did beautifully. And _Otabek_ —”

“Save it, grandpa,” Yuri interrupts, but he keeps his tone soft. “Known you too long to fall for the Viktor Show.”

He watches, straightening his hoodie, as the switch flips back off and the glow dims. Viktor Nikiforov, five-time world champion, looks like he needs a damn nap. Or a drink.

“Thanks, though,” Yuri adds, because, after all, Nikiforov gave him a compliment.

“Yeah,” he says vaguely, hands hanging loosely at his sides.

“Where’s—” _Not ‘the Katsudon,’ not ‘your husband’ yet—_ “Yuuri?”

“Interview.”

The Japanese media remains enamored with Katsuki. Rightfully so, but the GPF contingent could have picked a moment when Viktor Nikiforov is _not_ standing around half-dressed looking like his entire body is a loose end. Yakov, next-best, had collared Karim Sarper after the press conference to talk coach crap; there’s no telling when he’ll surface.

Yuri shoves his wallet into his back pocket, shrugs into his bomber, and closes his locker door on skates, gala outfit, and warmup clothes. He looks the old man over, goes to _his_ locker, and pulls the neatly folded maroon sweater off the top shelf. It covers a heap of competing non-necessities: wallet, gloves, loafers, all the same shade of deep brown, and a violet cable-knit scarf.

“Here,” he says, shoving the sweater at Viktor, then sets each of the accessories on the bench in a line, and then removes the camel-colored overcoat from its hanger (which is one of those really skinny felted ones, because Viktor is Viktor) and drapes it over his own arm. “What else?”

Viktor, having obediently put on the sweater and made a mess of his hair, blinks at the locker, then at Yuri; he’s just starting to squint, the first sign of recognition that something out of the ordinary is happening here. “Nothing,” he says.

“Okay,” says Yuri, shuts the door, and reaches up to fix Viktor’s head, on the outside at least. It’s not even a stretch; he’s only a few inches shorter now. He swipes at his silver hair until it’s flopping correctly. “Okay,” he says again. Viktor steps into his loafers, and Yuri holds out the coat by its lapels for Viktor to slip into, one arm at a time, like he’s Viktor’s valet. Which is what he’s trying to be, right now, because it’s one way to get the man to move.

Viktor puts his wallet in one of the coat’s front pockets and folds the gloves into the other, and abruptly turns and hugs him—one of his really _good_ hugs, arms wrapped close around Yuri’s skinny shoulders with cashmere sweater brushing against his cheek. Of course, Viktor miscalculates; his chin bumps Yuri’s forehead, and he snaps, “Stop _growing,_ ” like he’s correcting Yuri’s form for the thirtieth time that day.

“Not doing it on purpose,” Yuri snarls, and hugs him back.

For a moment, Viktor Nikiforov rests his cheek on the top of Yuri’s head and it’s just—good, being here for an infuriating mess he’s known for most of his life when he knows he’s needed. Viktor’s done the same before, when Yuri would somehow telegraph, through being even more of a brat than usual, that he was scared and tipping down a spiral of self-doubt. This closeness means _safe_ , means _you’re valued_ —means _I got you, whatever that’s worth_.

It’s worth plenty, although Yuri wouldn’t admit how much if he were paid to.

Then Viktor says, smug, “You didn’t tell me not to call you Yurio.”

“Consolation prize.” Yuri smiles to himself.

Viktor breaks away. “You little—”

He takes off sprinting, laughing evilly, because Viktor goddamn Nikiforov _still_ hasn’t learned not to give Yuri the chance to run when they’re on tile and Viktor’s in his fucking dress shoes.

***

Otabek and Karim and the Kazakh reporters find somewhere to do shots—two for him and…more for the others—and sing their anthem a few more times, along with a few folk songs, because it seems appropriate. He’s made his official tweet and Instagram post and muted notifications on both apps, but texts are still pouring in. He only bothers to answer his parents, Feruza, and Javier; the rest can wait a minute. Or a day, or whatever.

The hotel lobby is close to empty when he returns, a few hours after midnight, but as he walks past one of the high-backed armchairs, a gravelly voice says, “Oi, Otabek,” and Yuri springs up from the chair.

He nods, but that’s insufficient, and oh, whatever, he flings his arms around his friend and grins into his shoulder. Yuri makes an exasperated noise that sounds like “ _Again?_ ” and returns the hug as best as he can—they’re too close in height and Otabek kind of pinned his arms. “Sorry,” Otabek says as he drops his arms. “I’m just—”

“No, whatever. You done for the night?”

“I might pretend to be,” he says. “Come on, I’ll play my setlist for you.”

They catch up on the Internet in the elevator: Javier apparently had a new remix he wanted to debut, so Otabek flaking had been a net positive. The skating forums are imploding, several hosting threads debating the name of Otabek’s nascent international fan club, and Yuri’s Angels simply don’t know what to do with themselves, because since the free skates started Yuri has posted exactly once on Instagram. It’s a photo of Otabek himself at the moment the final scores went up, captioned only with the Kazakh flag and a thumbs-up.

Otabek hasn’t seen it until now, and in the last three hours of warm victory feelings he’s fairly sure this particular quiet candle-flame is unique. But, instead of hugging him again, he looks at Yuri sidelong and says, “Traitor.”

“Title thief,” Yuri replies as Otabek unlocks his room. Everything is so much and so little like last year—they’re on the fourteenth floor, not the eleventh, but his room’s layout is exactly the same and aside from the timing and a few wardrobe elements it’d all be a replica—except Otabek has the Grand Prix championship and he and Yuri have been friends for most of a year.

“You’ll forgive me,” Otabek says. “For being a title thief.”

Yuri glowers. “Never. I’m getting it back next year.”

“Sure, but—” Otabek starts messing with his laptop, plugging in his not-crap mini speakers and opening his setlist. It’s not fancy, just music he wants to listen to.

“Nope. Not forgiving,” Yuri says, and Otabek realizes he never finished his sentence. “Never. That’s how I win.” He pauses. “Plus being good.”

“I was better today.”

“Don’t push it, Altin.”

He turns from his laptop and grins at Yuri, who is sitting at the end of Otabek’s bed with his legs folded up to his chest, wearing the particular scowl that means he’s fighting a smile. “I _did it_ , Yuri.”

“So did I.”

“But _I_ did it, like—the first Kazakh medalist at the GPF, and _gold_ medalist. That’s what I’ve been aiming for, since—god, I don’t even know.”

“Yeah, you’re a national hero and there’ll be parades on horseback. Or reporter-back.”

“We’re in _history_ ,” Otabek says, and is struck anew by the marvel of it. _He personally_ , with his body and mind and soul, engraved his country, his home, in the stone of history. Sure, a specific niche of history, and when he’s more sober and less medal-high he’ll laugh at himself, but before tonight Kazakhstan had never won a Grand Prix series, and then _he_ happened. “My entire _country_.”

“Can I raid your minibar?”

“What? No.” He considers. “Not that I’m morally opposed, but you’re skating tomorrow.”

“So are you, and you’re drunk.”

“I’ve had _two_. An _hour_ ago.” Otabek leans back in the hotel armchair and notes that it’s not remotely comfortable, so he slides off the seat and onto the floor, where he can stretch out with his arms above his head. “Besides. I could break half the bones in my legs skating tomorrow and I wouldn’t care.”

Yuri makes a noise like a choked-off gasp; Otabek folds his arms beneath his head and looks over at him. He’s still perched at the end of the bed, but now his eyes are round with shock, and he’s gripping his own left wrist hard enough that his knuckles have gone white.

“What? I wouldn’t,” he repeats, and it’s nearly true. “It wouldn’t change today. I’d—I don’t know. Go to university. Engineering.”

The room is very still for a moment. Then, moving slowly, as if afraid of frightening him, Yuri unfolds from his knot. Instead of standing, he sinks to the floor as well, a foot or so away. He says nothing, just looks at the ceiling, and there’s still a strange set to the half of his face Otabek can see, too much white showing around his visible iris.

“Yuri?” Otabek says after a few moments.

“Please do not break half the bones in your legs,” Yuri says, a pleading note pitching his voice up. “Or any,” he adds. “Preferably not any. I know I said the endorphins will last ’til January, but please do not break things.”

Otabek feels a surge of mildly hysterical affection for this completely ridiculous human who is his best friend, but he swallows it. Instead, he just says, “You _care._ ”

“I _care_ about having opponents worth skating against,” Yuri says crisply, tone entirely in opposition to the way his face relaxes.

“Oh, of course.”

“So is tomorrow your pet project?”

He thinks. Technically speaking, he’s done what he’s said he would before he’d consider performing it. He’s put himself on the map, gotten the medals and the history, probably earned the respect of his rivals. He may have bought himself a respite from his athlete's persona, the Otabek Altin who appears in broadcasts and interviews.

But then again, his winnings are very new, and the evolution of his reputation from _consistent_ to _made goddamn history_ isn’t going to happen overnight. There’s also his in-character exhibition routine this season to think about, and how it fits in terms of tone. The music has it right in the title: _new world_ , the one where Kazakhstan has a global presence in figure skating, the triumph of it evident in every measure of the selection he’s using.

It fits perfectly. As a tribute and as a piece of his oeuvre— _holy shit, he’s now someone who has an oeuvre_ —it’s too good to goof with. “No, tomorrow’s New World,” he says, thirty-odd seconds after Yuri asked, and turns his head to meet Yuri’s narrow-eyed glare.

“What’s the hold-up?” Yuri says. He sounds suspicious, not angry.

Otabek shrugs, one shoulder rising off the floor and then settling. “It’s… I mean, it’s so—I haven’t earned it yet.”

“Earned it?”

He grasps for a way to make this make sense and remembers that it’s _right here_ , quite literally. “Last year, your exhibition program, the one we did. The whole thing, like—reclaiming skating for yourself?”

Yuri scoffs. “Like I’d forget.”

“The project—it’s _me_ , not Kazakh men’s figure skater Otabek Altin. It’s for when I’ve got enough of a record that I can also be, like—”

“Motorcycling DJ metalhead Otabek Altin?”

“Exactly.” Why and how he and Yuri Plisetsky understand each other is a particularly serendipitous kind of weird. “But the GPF gala—the GPF in general—this is for my home, and for Kazakh men’s figure skater Otabek. It’d be… I don’t know. Déclassé to do otherwise. But… I don’t know. If I do well at 4CC—”

“You’ll kick _ass_ at 4CC,” says Yuri.

“If I do, and if I manage to get to Worlds again—”

“You will.”

“ _If_ I do,” Otabek repeats, “and if I medal, three for three—then. Probably then.”

Yuri hums thoughtfully and says, “How do I make that a _definitely_?”

Otabek looks over at him. “Medal at Worlds too,” he says, on a whim, and when Yuri’s eyes narrow again and the beginning of something aggressive forms on his mouth, Otabek adds, overly casual, “You know. Be worth skating against.”

Yuri says, “Deal.” Lightning-fast, he elbows Otabek in the side; it doesn’t hurt, but it startles Otabek enough that he yelps. “Asshole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter creep. Oh well. Part 3 sometime soon!
> 
> Fact: Viktor gives amazing hugs. Lizveta is listening to early 2000s Infected Mushroom during costume refitting. Thanks so much for reading!


	3. never let it slip

[December 26, 2015, 22:07 YEKT, Yekaterinburg, Russia/23:07 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

**otabek_a:** got your 4S back?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** i wish  
**yuri_plisetsky:** that was luck evrthing is in hELL  
**otabek_a:** you are the second-best men’s singles figure skater in russia.  
**otabek_a:** by over 20 points. and popovich is good.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ok mb not evrthing  
**yuri_plisetsky:** old man better not retire b4 im not gettin pulled to bits by my own SKELETON  
**otabek_a:** that at least sounds pretty metal.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** hm kinda  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ok if i never recover from growing  
**yuri_plisetsky:** u shld b in my band

Yuri doesn’t know what’s up with Lilia and Yakov, and he refuses to find out. It’s enough that the mansion no longer feels quite so much like a mausoleum combined with a horror movie, one that’s too heavy on jump-scares. Plus, the two of them throw a New Year’s party, days after Nationals, and it’s the first time seventh-time Russian champion Viktor fucking Nikiforov goes full-on flutter-attack since the GPF.

Which is a relief. It at least gets that fucking look off the Katsudon’s face.

As for himself, Yuri finds he’s growing resigned to the place of the right-hand side of the podium in his life, at least until the growth spurt is over. He can’t remember when his last not-gold fit _was_ —no, he can, he realizes, at the same time that he realizes that this girl—a pairs skater—is flirting with him heavily and that he’s playing along as if he knows what he’s doing, or something.

To finish one train of thought, he does remember the last time he got well and truly furious about silver. At Skate America, he’d been about thirty seconds from his brain shutting down when that French guy had interrupted. Yuri’s initiation soon after into the not-very-secret club of people who’ve had their tongues in other people’s mouths had distracted him fairly thoroughly from having lost gold. Because hormones and the bodies they inhabit are conspiring _traitors_ to things that actually matter.

To catch up with the second train: Katya—his age, glossy deep brown hair with a purple streak dyed at the nape of her neck—is funny, vibrant, and overlooking any and all flaws in his flirting-response. She and her partner did novices and juniors in the US, but then their coach flaked, and Yakov snapped them up for their senior debut season, on the condition they came back to Russia, which paid off with a bronze at Nationals.

She is also _clearly_ someone who has had her tongue in other people’s mouths. That part of things is going very well, based on his temporally compressed experience. At least, until Yuri realizes he’s mentally replaying his quad toe loop in slow motion, thigh and calf muscles twitching as he thinks about adjusting this angle or that bend on the approach. Then it _actually_ hits him that this is what he’s doing while he’s making out with someone. It seems incorrect.

At about the same time, he notes that, while one of Katya’s hands is nested in his hair—which is _nice_ , he’s definitely in favor—the other is resting on his chest, and she’s tapping a rhythm on his clavicle with her fingers, something in groups of three. Everything seems physically _fine_ , he’s not _not_ enjoying himself, but after a few moments he mentally sighs and reaches up to touch the back of her hand, the one drumming a waltz on his collarbone. She goes still and draws away, other hand slipping out of his hair, her chin tipped down.

“Uh,” says Yuri. Scintillating. “You all right?” _Is that what you ask?_

“Mm,” replies Katya helpfully, and then, “Why?”

Yuri taps a triplet on the back of her hand before she snatches it away, face going pink.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’m—” She looks up at him suddenly and directly and says in English, clear and no-nonsense, all pretense of flirtiness vanished, “You were distracted too.”

He shrugs.

“Are we both just like too gay for this?” Katya says, tipping her head to one side. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re hot and the cred’s gonna be _great_ , but. I mean.”

“That’s—possible,” he replies in the same language, feeling something like panic at the same time as something like understanding, which is infuriating, because how does one get to be nearly seventeen without _knowing?_ “This is—I mean, you too, but—wait, _cred?_ ”

Katya pats his shoulder as she says, “I think we need vodka.”

They get drunk enough that Yakov yells at him the next afternoon, but before that happens they spend a good deal of time comparing notes and stories and gossiping about pairs drama. It turns out that Katya knows about the Skate America kissing game, and Yuri is too smashed to care about the rumor-mill implications of this but gleefully informs her he’s kissed more pairs girls than she has. The glee lasts until Katya tells him to shut the fuck up because _she’s_ definitely kissed more pairs _boys_ than _he_ has, and by the end of the night Yuri has no further insights into his own preferences but he does have “Katya (right hook)” in his phone—he’ll figure out her last name some other time—and a bruise blooming over his spleen or some other organ of secondary importance.

[January 1, 2016, 03:04 MSK, St. Petersburg, Russia/07:04 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

**yuri_plisetsky:** oat be k hw mnay skaters hav u kised  
**yuri_plisetsky:** o fk ur slepeing fkn kazaks  
**otabek_a:** I am awake. three on a technicality. why?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ogm me n katya beat u by tons  
**yuri_plisetsky:** tchniclalty lmao wat  
**otabek_a:** who is katya?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** shes gay n my friend  
**yuri_plisetsky:** n jst punched me agn  
**otabek_a:** how drunk are you?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** im not drnk im rssian

***

European championships are okay, despite taking fourth, a new and weird thought to this new and weird and, with any luck, non-permanent Yuri. In the four weeks following _the_ hangover of his short life, he and Yakov have retooled his free skate to max out non-jump-related technical points, while Lilia has been working his ass off in the studio. Furthermore, without planning, without _thinking_ , right during the performance, _something_ clicks in his SP, the music’s nervousness (he knows there has to be a better word for this; he’ll ask Feruza) resonating with his own knife’s-edge relationship with his musculoskeletal system, and his presentation score is…ridiculous, for him (he knows his weaknesses; he’s too good not to). He’s below Viktor, Giacometti, and Crispino, but the distance from his score to Giacometti’s is bridged by less than five points, and he locks in his spot at Worlds.

In sixth is Alain Mousseau, the French guy who’d had _something_ to do with the Skate America kissing room that is apparently common knowledge among eighty per cent of internationally ranked skaters under nineteen, regardless of discipline. Yuri finds him after the awards ceremony and press conference and all that crap—he’s just hanging out in the hotel lobby while assorted skaters and coaches abandon the place for Bratislava nightlife, assuming there is any. Yuri doesn’t keep track yet.

When Yuri approaches Alain, draped across one of the lobby couches, he says, “Ah, Yuri Plistetsky.”

Yuri is going to have to interrogate some people as to why they are so intent on making his name sound like an illegal activity.

“No make-out orgy?” he says, because words apparently just fall out his face these days.

Alain raises one eyebrow, which, Yuri notes, is a good look on him. “Small pool,” he replies casually. “Everyone’s old. Why, are you looking for something to do?”

His verbal emphasis is weird, and it takes Yuri a moment to realize he’s essentially been propositioned. Or offered the chance to proposition someone else. Or something. “Might be,” he says, with a shrug like he couldn’t care less, just to see what happens.

Alain smirks, which is an even better look, while simultaneously somewhat punchable, and stands up as if it’s what he’s been planning to do the entire time. “Well, come on.”

Yuri does not follow orders from strangers, that one time with Otabek and Otabek’s borrowed bike aside.

Technically, though, Alain isn’t a stranger, because he’s had his tongue in Yuri’s mouth.

So.

***

[February 14, 2016, 17:42 MSK, St. Petersburg, Russia/21:42 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

**yuri_plisetsky:** r u free 4 a bit  
**otabek_a:** what’s up?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** just wanna talk  
**yuri_plisetsky:** do u hav time t

Otabek places the Skype call before he knows he’s doing it, because _Yuri does not ask_. He’s—not precisely _scared_ , because if it were something truly dire like a major injury it would’ve been on the forums, in which case Feruza would have told him, and if it were something where Yuri _needed_ to talk—Otabek does not think about what those scenarios might be—he’d have called outright, charges be damned. But he’s alert, all traces of winding-down sleepiness burned off in a moment, and rifling through possibilities of what will face him when Yuri accepts—

His phone buzzes just as the call connects.

[17:43:05 MSK/21:43:05 ALMT]

**yuri_plisetsky:** wtf

Yuri is slouched on his bedroom floor, phone in one hand and his chin supported on his right knee; his left leg is folded to the side, knee flat on the hardwood, left ankle on top of right foot. The ankle is Ace-bandaged, and Otabek feels his breath catch even as he’s mentally repeating to himself that if it were _really_ bad he would have heard already. “What’s with your ankle?” Otabek demands, before Yuri can speak.

He lifts his head and sets the phone on the floor, glaring, before comprehension relaxes his features. “ _Oh_ , you thought it was something serious—”

“What’d you do?”

Yuri clicks his tongue against his teeth, scowling. “Landed dumb the other day. Look,” he adds, hurried and putting up one hand palm-out, as Otabek starts to say _define ‘dumb’_ , “Yakov already yelled about it, okay, medical looked at it, minor strain, mild swelling, whatever. This is actually part of the whole…thing.” His face goes—weird, for a moment: Yuri Plisetsky does not look uncertain, as a rule.

“The thing,” Otabek repeats, pulse calming. “That you wanted to talk about.”

Yuri shifts and looks away from his camera. “I—yeah.”

Otabek settles more comfortably as he readies his mental list of leading questions for _getting Yuri Plisetsky to say a goddamn sentence_. “Which is…”

His mouth twisting in chagrin, Yuri puts one hand over his eyes. “I—” He makes a noise like _bleaghgh_ and Potya, briefly visible as two crescent gleams of green-yellow, yawns and closes her eyes again. “This is so dumb. How do you know if you got dumped?”

The catalogue of subjects of varying severity about which Yuri Plisetsky would refuse to speak plainly that Otabek has mentally assembled is, apparently, insufficient. As is Otabek’s vocabulary, because all he manages is, “What?”

“Like, do—I don’t know, I know you don’t like talking about it, but did Lee—send you anything? For today?”

“What’s today—”

“No, that’s a bad question, never mind, Feruza said you were weird. Something about violence and convenience or whatever. Instead of being normal.” Yuri drops his hand and glares at nothing. “This is useless, I don’t _know_ anyone normal—”

“Yuri,” Otabek says abruptly, something in the rising anxiety hidden in Yuri’s voice snapping his patience, “ _what_ are you talking about?”

Yuri jolts, shakes his head like he’s trying to get cobwebs out of his hair, and says, “Right, I’m not making sense. Look, I—” He breathes in, deeply, and says on the exhale, “Hooked up or whatever with this French guy Alain at Europeans and he texted me today and I might have just gotten dumped because I didn’t reply but I didn’t know that was a _thing_.”

A number of different emotional switches flip simultaneously, several still overactive from the disproved idea that Yuri might be _hurt_ , and their physical result is an urge to laugh—he doesn’t—as his brain reboots. “What?” he says, for the fourth time in far too short a period.

“Which part was unclear?” Yuri says, his jaw starting to jut. He’s either embarrassed or impatient or both. Probably both.

Otabek mentally replays Yuri’s sentence, each individual clause of which was essentially comprehensible, aside from—oh. He remembers, now, the haze of reds and pinks that took over entire sections of Detroit drugstores at this time of year, two years in a row—and in Montreal, but less overwhelmingly. His first _boyfriend_ , if words like that counted when one was fifteen, had declared his feelings on this day four years ago by shoving a box of chalky heart-shaped candies into his hand, kissing his cheek, and fleeing. Of course, he and Will had built their relationship on the firm foundations of Nintendo melee tournaments with a dozen other high school-age kids—a couple figure skaters plus Will’s hockey friends and band section—so the box had had HEY ASSHOLE: I LIKE YOU written on it in smeared marker, but the thought had counted.

“What did—he text you?” he asks, having blanked on the name of Yuri’s Will-equivalent.

“Alain Mousseau. Sixth at Europeans,” Yuri provides. “He sent me a selfie—”

“Did you delete it?”

“What?” His brow furrows, before his eyes widen in shock. “Not _that_ kind of selfie! Do I _look_ like Giacometti?”

Otabek shifts his weight, saying, “Ruling out variables,” as he mentally kicks himself.

Yuri drops it, blessedly. “So Alain sent me a _totally PG_ selfie—” Okay, _mostly_ drops it. “—And said ‘thinking of you.’ Wink emoji. At, like, ten in the morning. Nine for him.”

“And you—”

“Worked on choreography for a goddamn _century_ and then Yakov had an aneurysm because of the ankle so I got it checked like I said and it’s _fine_ —”

“I believe you,” says Otabek, mostly so that Yuri will breathe.

He does so, and then finishes in a rush. “And I didn’t look at the thread until like twenty minutes ago and he’s sent like ten messages and the last one was, quote, _wow, okay, I know when I’m not wanted_.” Yuri bites his lip. “So how much did I fuck up?”

Otabek asks, “Did you reply?”

“With _what_ ,” Yuri says, as if rhetorically. He probably thinks it is.

“An explanation.”

“Oh, yeah, _that’d_ go over well, ‘sorry, spent the day pissing off my coach and getting lectured by doctors—’”

“Yuri,” he interrupts. “Reply. Explain.”

Yuri blinks. “What, now?”

“Sometime before tomorrow,” Otabek says.

He blinks again, brushes blond hair out of his face, and picks up his phone. “Okay,” Yuri says, “but if this goes to shit—” He breaks off his own sentence and starts typing. “‘Hey, sorry,’” he narrates as he goes, with far more letters implied than usually appear in his text messages, “‘spent today pissing off my coach and getting yelled at by doctors and…didn’t get… a chance to reply?’” He glances at Otabek. “Is that all right?”

“It’s true,” he says. “That’s good.”

“I’m not gonna _lie_ to him,” says Yuri. “It’s not—enough, though, is it?”

The universe in which Otabek Altin is offering Yuri Plisetsky long-distance dating advice is extremely weird, and also this one. “You should probably say something nice about the selfie.” He does not add _if you have something nice to say about it_.

“‘Would have been nice to have had time to appreciate the pic,’” Yuri says, and Otabek nearly chokes. Yuri shoots a look at his camera, meeting Otabek’s eyes through a double layer of webcams. “I don’t _need_ to be Giacometti,” he points out. “Still not putting a damn wink emoji. He can’t catch on, he can’t keep up.”

The universe in which Yuri is discussing his innuendo strategy as flirting technique with Otabek is even weirder.

“Sent.”

“You met, what, two weeks ago?”

“October. Skate America. The whipped cream vodka—god, why did I just remind myself of—” Yuri’s phone buzzes; he blinks at the new text and nods once, satisfied. “Okay. Says he was just fucking with me. And hopes the doctor thing isn’t serious. So I wasn’t dumped.”

“I’m glad.”

“Should figure out whether I _can_ get dumped.”

Otabek decides it is a good time to be tired again. “You’re on your own there. I’m going to bed.”

“Whatever, geezer. Thanks.”

He is fairly certain he now has to use his fingers, not just thumbs, to count the number of times Yuri Plisetsky has expressed gratitude using words to him.

***

[February 15, 2016, 08:37 ALMT]

**feruzaaa:** yuri plisetsky texted me at 3AM saying u r good at dating advice??? isnt he a bb?????  
**otabek_a:** he’s three months older than you, hypocrite. how is zhanat, by the way?  
**feruzaaa:**  she is lovely thx BUT  
**feruzaaa:** WHAT WAS HE ASKING U ABT???  
**otabek_a:** dating advice.  
**feruzaaa:** OTASH I swear  
**otabek_a:** he’s seeing someone from another country  & they had a misunderstanding about texting availability & yuri thought it was a lot worse than it was. so I told him to talk to the guy first.  
**otabek_a:** that’s all. it turned out fine.  
**feruzaaa:** …  
**otabek_a:** what.  
**feruzaaa:** …yuri plisetsky had 2 text u 2 have u tell him 2 talk 2 his boyfriend  
**otabek_a:** we skyped, actually. after he texted.  & applicability of “boyfriend” is questionable.  
**feruzaaa:** omgGGGGG  
**feruzaaa:** yuri plisetsky had 2 text u 2 have u SKYPE HIM to tell him 2 talk 2 his UNSURE-IF-BOYFRIEND  
**otabek_a:** well, when you put it like that it sounds stupid.  
**feruzaaa:** BECAUSE YOU’RE ALL MORONS

***

[08:47 ALMT/05:47 MSK, St. Petersburg, Russia]

**feruzaaa:** YURI PLISETSKY WHO R U DATING  
**yuri_plisetsky:** idk if its dating  & if this goez on 4ums im blockin u  
**feruzaaa:** I WILL NOT TELL A SOUL, I SWEAR ON MY BROTHER’S DUMB HEAD  
**yuri_plisetsky:** hey otabek isnt dumb  
**yuri_plisetsky:** alain mousseau tho. france  
**feruzaaa:** a-la-alain on insta?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** wtf u work fast  
**feruzaaa:** no i follow him gotta stay ahead of the forums  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ur such a sk8 fan  
**feruzaaa:** no i merely delight in knowing more than sk8 fans  
**yuri_plisetsky:** w/e thats just ur cover  
**yuri_plisetsky:** dw ill keep ur secret

***

On the 17th, the day before 4CC officially starts, Otabek hauls himself through jetlag in Taipei by catching up—to the extent he can catch anything—with JJ Leroy and Isabella Yang, accompanying her fiancé during his first international competition since his injury; Karim and JJ’s parents come along and JJ spends most of their dinner talking to them. Iz is maintaining a terrifying grade point average in her third year of pre-med—she’s double-majoring in biology and historical anthropology, because she is probably superhuman—and happy to chat with Otabek. “I mean,” she says, after taking a sip of jasmine tea, “I don’t think we’ve talked since—what, the Grand Prix banquet? In 2014?”

“I follow your social media,” Otabek replies, and wants to kick himself.

“That’s _right_ ,” Iz says, setting down her cup. “You unlocked your Instagram? I kept meaning to ask, but, well, phrasing—”

He blinks, surprised she’d noticed. Then again, probably superhuman. “It seemed…commensurate,” Otabek says, carefully. “With Worlds last season—”

“And congratulations on that, belatedly. _And_ the Grand Prix.” Iz looks thoughtful. “Commensurate,” she repeats. “A more public face to reflect that you’ve become more prominent as a public figure. Yeah, smart.”

“It’s not like—I’m not part of—” He doesn’t know how to _talk_ about this without sounding like a tool.

“The whole Skaters of Instagram crew? No, no, you’re your own.” Iz nods at him. “It’s been good to see. Okay, tell me what you’ve been reading. Have you gotten through _The Goldfinch_ yet? It took me two _months_ —”

***

He takes silver with Katsuki Yuuri in first, as he should be, and Seung-gil collecting bronze. Guanghong is a few points ahead of JJ Leroy, whose return to the ice is…surprising, in a quiet way, and surprising _because_ it’s quiet. JJ shakes his hand after the awards ceremony, says, “Pleasure to see you, man,” and sounds like he means it. Almost.

Katsuki and Nikiforov pull a Skate Canada and whisk him and Karim off for a late meal and a single round of drinks. They talk about Worlds and Taipei museums and everything is normal—to the extent that eating with _Katsuki and Nikiforov_ is normal—until the walk back to the hotel. Katsuki and Karim are ahead deep in a discussion of art history; Otabek and Nikiforov are quiet, comfortably so, until Nikiforov says suddenly, “Yurio thinks the world of you, you know.”

His motivations for saying such, now, are utterly opaque; Otabek replies simply, “He’s a good friend.”

Nikiforov’s laugh is soft. “I don’t believe any of us would have said so until you met.”

There’s no response to that. Hypotheticals, in-group references. Otabek is never part of _us_. He looks up; the sky is yellowy with light pollution.

“Skating is an insular world,” Nikiforov says, after enough seconds of street noise for it to feel like a new topic. “You’ve been an education. A good one, especially for Yurochka. I am making a mess of this and my fiancé will have my head.” The last sentence lands as smoothly and casually as the previous few, and when Otabek glances over, Nikiforov’s face is unreadable.

“Only if it’s still attached.” He has no idea what Nikiforov is talking about—Yuri’s voice yells _one-man soap opera_ in the back of his head—but it’s easy enough to return pointless riff for cryptic bullshit if the riff is based on the stable ground of Katsuki Yuuri and Viktor Nikiforov being nuts about each other.

Nikiforov sighs extravagantly. “I am attempting to get around to saying that we do hope we’ll see you in Hasetsu in June. Gauche to say as much before issuing invitations, but if there’s anything we can do to make it more likely for you to attend something far from home—”

“I won’t miss it,” Otabek says, cutting him off before he actually voices _I’ll buy your plane ticket to my wedding because my weird little not-protégé told me to invite you_. As if the business of being Otabek Altin, public figure and internationally competitive figure skater, hasn’t been his full-time job—his _other_ full-time job—since he took bronze in his first ISU series as a junior. As if he needs _handouts_. He’d booked a room at a non-Yu-Topia inn in January, for fuck’s sake; he’s an adult. But his voice is even, mild as always, and they’re at the hotel anyway, and everyone says goodnight like it was a perfectly pleasant evening out. Which it was. Nikiforov just thinks boundaries are for other people, or something. Otabek has known that, vicariously, since Yuri first yelled it at some point after experiencing one of the Nikiforov–Katsuki PDA episodes that Viktor enacts so enthusiastically.

He still feels something very like gratitude—which transmutes quickly into confusion—when he checks his phone.

Feb. 20 11:23

**seung-gillee:** room 944. for a change.

Feb. 21 01:03

**seung-gillee:** if your party with the katsuki-nikiforov amoeba continues past 2, I’m asleep.  
**seung-gillee:** actually fuck that. if you want Company go find cao.  
**seung-gillee:** but.  
**seung-gillee:** if you just want to hang out. I’m not asleep.

Curious, he knocks at 944 at ten minutes past the hour. Seung-gil opens the door and nods once, standing to the side to let Otabek in. He’s wearing a Korean football shirt from the 2010 World Cup and his blue-trimmed warmup pants, and his hair is a rats’ nest.

“Cao Bin?” Otabek asks.

“No, the other one,” Seung-gil says, flat. “I thought this was the Yuri you didn’t let beat you.”

He almost asks Seung-gil to repeat himself, but then the sentence registers. And processes.

He turns on his heel and has his hand on the doorknob when Seung-gil says, “Joking.”

“Get a new sense of humor.” Otabek’s own voice sounds tight.

“Joking poorly. Katsuki’s better than you. So’s the little Yuri when he’s not fucking up.”

Otabek half-turns, hand still on the doorknob. “I fuck up less,” he says.

“You do. Let’s watch something shitty.”

“His last name is Plisetsky.”

“The Thor movies are pretty bad.”

“I have some standards, you realize.”

Seung-gil almost looks smug when he says, “I know.”

They watch Iron Man, Otabek leaning against the bed’s headboard with Seung-gil sprawled to his right. They talk intermittently, streams of half-sentences tearing up the visual effects, the script, the key lines. Seung-gil attempts to go after the music and Otabek shuts him down, over and over, until Seung-gil gives up and throws a balled-up napkin from room service at him.

“Your music taste is shit.”

“You’re shit.”

“Shit that outscored you. Again.”

“I’d kill you but it’d be a waste of a good rival.”

“One who’s beat you three times.”

“Makes you a good one.”

***

[February 22, 2016, 12:26 MSK, St. Petersburg, Russia/15:26 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

**feruzaaa:** yuri  
**yuri_plisetsky:** did we not talk enuf abt otabek being good ystrday  
**feruzaaa:** we did, different thing  
**feruzaaa:** hav u checked insta  
**yuri_plisetsky:**  this morning, we just broke for lunch  
**yuri_plisetsky:** y  
**feruzaaa:** shit  
**feruzaaa:** [screencap of Instagram post timestamped 40 minutes previous by **a-la-alain** : Alain Mousseau with unknown blond guy, tagged #boyfsonice]  
**yuri_plisetsky:** o  
**feruzaaa:** im sorry :C  
**yuri_plisetsky:** lmao answers that q  
**feruzaaa:** ?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** NOT a thing i cld get dumped from  
**feruzaaa:** …omg u r USELESS  
**yuri_plisetsky:**  im efficient  
**yuri_plisetsky:** thx v much

***

[March 08, 2016, 15:32 MSK, St. Petersburg, Russia/19:32 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

**yuri_plisetsky:** c u in boston massaschsdffwff y is america  
**otabek_a:** colonialism. weather’s going to suck.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** w/e cant b worse than piter  
**otabek_a:** I saw alain on the roster  
**yuri_plisetsky:** yeah  &  
**otabek_a:** looking forward to seeing him?  
**yuri_plisestky:** hes dating a hockey dude  
**otabek_a:** what?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** lmao ask ur sister  
**yuri_plisetsky:** im gonna medal n ur gonna do ur project hope u been practicing  
**otabek_a:** religiously.

In the six weeks since Bratislava, Yuri’s body has calmed somewhat, or he’s gotten stronger, or he’s drilled so much his new height hasn’t had time to catch up with his muscle memory. That’s not how it works, he knows that, but the entire season has felt like a race against his bones and he’s finally, _finally_ found his stride and pulled ahead of stupid hormones and stupid growing pains and whatever. He hasn’t recovered his quad loop and his Salchow is still shaky, but his toe loop is back, and he _feels_ that the jumps he lands are higher, stronger, eating up ice in gulps. Spins are faster, with more dramatic changes in momentum when he adjusts his posture. And his half-Biellmann hasn’t slipped a fraction of a millimeter, because Lilia might eat pickled human hearts for breakfast but it’s worth it for how she guides his body to fucking _behave_ when it’s moving only under its own power.

The ice is trickier, as always, but that’s why he loves it, that’s why he keeps fighting it: it is an enemy to beat and it will never be defeated.

He has a last costume fitting before they fly out. Lizveta plays Australian dance-punk, one song and its remixes interspersed with two full albums. The actual work she has to do is minimal—re-re-measuring his shoulders, which have filled out with _muscle_ (by three centimeters total) _—_ but he hangs around her workshop anyway, pelting her with questions about music and costuming and dressing people for music videos and Eurovision—which she’s done before—and action movies, which she wants to. When he absolutely has to leave for barre because he’s already five minutes late, she shakes his hand and gives him a flash drive. “Music. Stuff you might like. Share with that metalhead friend of yours.”

The concept that Otabek Altin is known to Russian tailors as Yuri’s metalhead friend is precisely the combination of surprising and satisfying and correct as the first post-growth-spurt clean landing of his quad toe loop had been, two weeks ago.

***

Boston is cold, grey, unrepentantly slushy, and _much_ worse than St. Petersburg. In terms of weather, at least.

“I don’t get it,” Yuri says to Mila, the day before Otabek’s flight gets in and two before the official practices start. “Where are the _teenagers_?”

They’re walking along Newbury Street, passing shop after shop of full-priced designer labels. It’s a Saturday afternoon and the streetlights are on already, gleaming off Mila’s smirk. “Why, Yurochka, are you feeling out of place? Missing your Angels?”

He reminds himself that he is giving her a pass on being obnoxious because she’s probably freaking about _defending her title_ and, definitely but secondarily, freaking out about seeing Sara for the first time since Europeans. So he doesn’t call her names or swear; he just burrows into his coat collar and says, “It’s weird, is all. Everyone’s twenty-five.”

“There are thirty schools or something around here,” she answers. “Universities. One’s got its own postal code or something. Student population is huge.” Mila drapes an arm over his shoulders, which he permits, both because he is being nice and because now she has to _reach up_ to do it, which is deeply satisfying. “So you’re the baby of the city, but we knew that already,” she says into his ear.

“Sure, uni-skipping slacker.” He’s being _nice_ , not a doormat.

Mila neatly turns the quasi-sisterly shoulder-draping into a headlock, so Yuri tries and fails to carry-lift her—fine, he needs to work on upper-body strength—so he settles for tickling her instead, because kicking a skater the same week as Worlds is a _sin_ , which is how Yuri and Mila discover that designer boutiques in Boston can kick you off their sidewalks.

They’re hypothetically looking for something for Sara, but they’re hauled wildly off-course by the power of Nikiforov and the Katsudon on their way out of a high-end boutique where Nikiforov bought nothing—his hands are empty, at least, although it’s plausible he’d have things delivered to his hotel room, if not shipped straight across the fucking ocean—but probably flirted outrageously with the sales staff while the Katsudon made high-pitched noises about price tags. Nikiforov is vibrato-ing about wedding party outfits. Somehow, after a very confused four minutes of mass negotiating in three languages—in which no one gets kicked off any sidewalks, which Yuri figures is probably age profiling—Katsuki Yuuri goes off with Mila to hunt Sara-presents and Nikiforov hauls Yuri into a fucking menswear shop. Despite Yuri’s protests, he is suddenly being fitted for a goddamn three-piece suit in dark grey linen while Nikiforov emotes about the precise shade of green his tie should be. There are pins near all of his joints and he’s effectively stuck, unless he feels like acquiring some puncture wounds.

“You could’ve just gotten my measurements from Lizveta,” Yuri says as Viktor holds two nearly identical ties on either side of his face. “And _greens_ ,” he adds, remembering the photography session with all the different lights. The color is clearly cursed.

“No fun in that,” Nikiforov says cheerfully, discarding one of the ties and picking up another.

“You think _this_ is fun? There’s a comic shop up the street—your _fiancé_ had opinions about it, that should be good enough for—”

“Who’s this Alain Mousseau?”

Yuri scoffs. “Mind going in your old age? France. Sixth at Europeans.”

“You’re seeing him.”

He clamps down on his first reaction, which is yelling, and his second, which is laughing like a hyena, and instead says, coolly, “What’s it to you?” Because, really, what?

Viktor puts down both the ties in his hands and says, suddenly sharp, “Your image, if you mess this up in front of the media.”

“Nothing to mess up,” Yuri shoots back. “My _image_ is safe.”

His face softens—concern. “Oh, Yurochka. If you want to talk—”

Yuri still can’t move—the tailor is working around his waist—so he rolls his eyes as hard as he can and says, “I don’t. It didn’t _matter_.” Especially once he’d gotten his toe loop back. “So shut it.”

Nikiforov shuts it, which means he starts babbling about tie knots and quizzing Yuri on which ones he knows. Yuri takes particular joy in the horror that crosses Nikiforov’s face when he says he didn’t know there were options.

***

After Yakov’s skaters and the Katsudon have gotten in some unofficial practice at the official rink on Sunday, the four of them—Nikiforov, Katsuki, Mila, and Yuri—eat a late lunch in a café near the hotel. At least, Yuri’s eating; Mila is texting Sara nonstop through Sara’s flight delay, and Viktor is trying to distract the Katsudon from his nerves by talking about local history crap, of which there is an absurd amount. Bushels of it, or barrels, or whatever stupid units stupid America insists on using. Yuri’s phone buzzes; he digs it out of his hoodie pocket while chewing.

[March 27, 2016, 14:42 EDT, Boston, MA, USA]

**otabek_a:** at hotel. please tell me where coffee.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** UR HERE  
**yuri_plisetsky:** coffee n me r here  
**yuri_plisetsky:** [Google Maps link of directions from hotel to café]

Seven minutes later, Otabek steps into the café, looking like he always does, sort of like he’s calculating a tip in a currency with a tricky exchange rate. “ _Oi_ ,” Yuri yells, all he can articulate mid-chew, and when Otabek looks over, he points firmly at the spot next to him at the booth. He’s on the same side of the table as Mila; the three of them will fit. Otabek dips his chin and goes straight to the counter to order.

Yuri turns back to the table, swallowing his food, and finds that Katsuki is smiling at him. The expression looks watery, but it’s better than it was before. “What,” Yuri says.

“You look happier,” Katsuki replies. “I’m glad.”

Mila sniffs. “Pointing and grunting, Yurochka. Thought you were past that.”

“My mouth was full,” Yuri says, with his best impression of someone who cares about primness.

“Ah, Lilia’s beat some civility into you after all.”

“She’s _tried_.”

Otabek walks over at this point, carrying a lidded cup that probably holds tar-black coffee and a sandwich. Yuri scoots to give him a few more inches of table space, ignoring Mila driving her elbow into his ribs, and Otabek sits down on his other side.

“Hi, Otabek,” Katsuki says, cheerful. Nikiforov’s doing his press smile, for some reason. Otabek lifts the hand that isn’t holding his cup in the lowest-energy approximation of a wave possible and drinks his punishment coffee.

“Long trip,” Yuri explains to the table in general, while Otabek is occupied with chemically kick-starting his brain. “Three flights in a row starting this time yesterday, except that was super-early this morning in Almaty. Stops in Astana and Germany—Frankfurt, yeah?”

“Yes,” says Otabek, before returning to his coffee.

“So Karim is probably asleep, and you’re only here because you’re going to try to make today thirty-six hours long?”

“Yes.”

“So we should do something cool. Isn’t there an aquarium?” Yuri looks at Nikiforov, who’s most likely to know. “There were all those ads on the subway.”

“The T,” Katsuki corrects.

“It can have whatever name it wants.” Of _course_ the Katsudon cares about the local names of public transit systems. “Viktor?”

Nikiforov has this weird look on his face, amusement touched with overtones of fondness and resignation. “There is an aquarium, yes. There are penguins. Seals.”

“Okay, we’re going,” Yuri says, and sits back, satisfied. “Once you’ve eaten.”

Otabek puts his coffee down, finally, and starts on his sandwich.

“Are we invited?” says Nikiforov.

Next to him, Otabek freezes for the barest moment, then recovers and goes on eating like nothing happened.

“No,” Yuri tells Nikiforov, and grins.

If every motion Otabek has ever made were not perfectly deliberate, Yuri would consider it a coincidence that his leg shifts, his knee bumping against Yuri’s. But it’s Otabek, which means that it’s planned, a message, and the gentleness of it feels like _thanks_. Without looking away from Nikiforov, who is pouting, Yuri nudges back. He’s not sure what he’s saying, but Otabek will figure it out.

***

The aquarium smells very like there are three dozen penguins living on the first floor, but since that’s true, it’s just something to get used to. Otabek is impressed by the place, which is structured as a spiral of exhibits surrounding a central column that’s actually a five-story _tank_ , a dozen meters across, inhabited by big fish and turtles and a few sharks. Yuri is watching one of the penguins zip around underwater when he knocks Otabek with his shoulder and says, “Tell me what’s up with Nikiforov.”

Otabek looks back down. The penguin habitat is sort of an indoor sunken pool, ten feet below the level of the first floor, and it stretches out to surround the main tank, with a few catwalks and ladders down the sides. “What do you mean?” he says, hoping it’ll buy him time.

“When he was all _whine take us with you_. You got weird. Subtly. And I mean subtle for _you_.”

He sighs. Insufficient time. The subway ride from the North End to the aquarium wasn’t bad, despite the lingering sandiness in his eye sockets, mostly because Yuri spent most of it sounding out the names of different stations and speculating on the exact nature of a brain-tree. However, he’s still on the wrong end of the time change, and he’s not certain he’s articulate enough to explain the weird conversation at 4CC, or how it was weird, or the sense of steadiness that settled in his chest when Yuri said “ _we’re_ going” and meant _him_ or how it had wobbled when Nikiforov asked if he’d meant _them_. “At 4CC,” he says, slow, “he basically asked if he should—or, no, if he _could_ , if I’d _let_ him cover me flying to Japan this summer.”

“Make him do it,” Yuri replies. Otabek stares at him, and after a moment Yuri tears his eyes away from the penguins and glances over through his hair. “What? He won’t miss the cash.”

“I don’t need help,” Otabek says. “Him asking—”

“Sure, you don’t need it,” Yuri interrupts, shrugging. “I don’t either. He’s covering me.”

“It was like he was assuming I _couldn’t_ , unless he helped. He said he and Yuuri talked about it. And that Yuuri had told him to ask.”

“Doubt it,” Yuri says. “The Katsudon doesn’t talk about money. His or other people’s. The old man can be an idiot about shit, though.”

Otabek tries to recall the conversation as he tracks a turtle winding through the central tank. _I mean to say we hope we’ll see you…_ And then Viktor had gone off about money, and he’d still used plural pronouns, but… Yuri’s information, and the reinterpretation it supports, does square better with what he knows of Katsuki: asking his fiancé to make sure that Otabek knows he’s not _just_ being invited because Yuri told them to. And of Nikiforov, for that matter: trying to clarify _we consider you one of our friends_ by offering something material, to someone he sees as Yuri’s peer. “Huh.”

“Make him do it anyway,” says Yuri. “Free trip to Japan. You could stay a couple weeks and rent a bike.”

He turns back to Yuri, surprised. “ _Weeks_?”

“They’ve got the rink. It’s little, but it worked for the Katsudon for a couple decades,” Yuri says, watching an aquarium employee in a wetsuit hand-feeding one of those penguins with spiky yellow plumes like punk eyebrows.

“Hotels,” Otabek reminds Yuri. He thinks, but doesn’t say, that that part _is_ a problem; his budget can comfortably handle exactly four nights at the cheapest of the Hasetsu inns, if he includes the flights.

Yuri shrugs. “Stay with me at the Katsukis’,” he says. “I’m in the room I took last time. But I’ll be less of a shit about it in June because Mari will drown me otherwise.”

“Really?”

“Probably not really. She’d definitely get Minako to kill me in the studio, though.” Yuri looks back at him and his eyes widen. “Wait, like, am I really inviting you? Why wouldn’t I?”

_Why would you?_ Again, Otabek doesn’t say it. He half-shrugs, one shoulder up and down, and looks away.

“If you snore, you’re buying my earplugs.” Yuri puts his hands in his hoodie pockets and jerks his head at a sign nearby. “Come on, there’s a touch tank.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lizveta is listening to the Presets (Apocalypso and Beams, plus the No Fun EP). There are two mini-refs to other Y!!!OI fics I love in here: green being cursed is a riff on a line from [what's a mob to a king; what's a king to an emo teenager?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12158646) by crossroadswrite, and Otabek's little sister trolling skating fans is inspired by [Five Things Yuri Plisetsky Loves Very Loudly...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771590/chapters/23889795) by Rosie_Rues. (I refuse to curse myself further by acknowledging chapter creep.)


	4. one minute here

[March 28, 2016, 16:33 EDT, Boston, MA, USA]

 **alain_mousseau:** yuri plisetsky. what are you up to this afternoon?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** [attached .JPG: ‘you tried’ in Comic Sans on five-point gold star]  
**alain_mousseau:** …?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** sext ur bf if ur bored  
**alain_mousseau:** ah. I did handle that poorly  
**alain_mousseau:** could I make it up to you over coffee?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** lol im kinda busy  
**yuri_plisetsky:** dipshit

The first two days—practice for skaters; meetings for coaches and referees and all those people—pass quickly. Yuri works as instructed, trains on and off the ice by himself or with Yakov or Lilia (or both), eats when told, and does not hunt down and punch Mousseau after that pathetic fake-suave non-apology. He and Otabek wander around the city when they have free time, checking out random shops. On Tuesday, Otabek presses an armful of secondhand sci-fi paperbacks on him, describing them as indispensable, and then gives a full-on lecture about how they’re not _really_ sci-fi because of the absurdism and the fantasy elements, but instead social and political commentary plus literary criticism through the medium of speculative fiction tropes. After fifteen minutes, Yuri shoves the first three volumes of his favorite manga into Otabek’s hands and tells him to diversify his geek shit. It seems like a good trade.

***

They convene on Wednesday, just after the official opening ceremony (which is _after_ one of the ice dance events, because skating standard time), while the spray holding Yuri’s hair in its slicked-back knot is still setting. There are thirty individual men’s skaters, split into five groups; Yuri’s, fourth of the five, includes the intractably cheerful qualified-by-a-hair Phichit Chulanont. And Lee Seung-gil, who Yuri nods to, but Lee just—sort of curls his upper lip, like he’s trying to sneer without knowing how. But that’s Lee’s problem, not his.

They each go off on their own for the first four groups’ performances, stretching and staying warm and having excessive feelings, or whatever it is other skaters do before competing. Yuri zones out, earbuds playing one of Lizveta’s trance recommendations; his pre-show routine has only changed in intensity, not form, since he was skating with the novices, and he doesn’t _get_ nervous.

His group materializes when called, six guys between sixteen (for one more day—Yuri) and twenty-six (some German), wearing their jackets over their costumes. There’s a bit of time before their warmup period, so Yuri is pretending to ignore everyone when Phichit approaches, beaming, in deep royal blue with silver trim under his team jacket. “Yurio,” he says, and he’s too sunny to get mad at for it, “my Nikitsutki wedding buddy!”

“You made a name for them?”

“A printable one,” Phichit replies, and his smile goes surprisingly wicked. “I’m sure you have a few that are worse.”

He’s part of the Katsudon’s wedding party, which is going to be—fun, Yuri realizes. Phichit rests his chin on Yuri’s shoulder, endearingly—he’s like a puppy—for a selfie, before his coach confiscates his iPhone. Lee refuses to make eye contact.

Yuri adjusts the cuffs and collar of his ruby-colored shirt—it’s visually boring compared to his bodysuits from last year; there’s not a single rhinestone on it and it’s utterly devoid of fishnet, but it looks fucking good in motion and it doesn’t itch—and _does not_ touch his hair, on pain of whatever Lilia can think up, before they head onto the ice for the six-minute warmup. The time slips past; off the rink, Yuri puts in his earbuds and continues stretching, program music on repeat. He’s fourth up of his group, so it’s twenty minutes or so of waiting, enough to mentally tally his possible friction points but not so long that his muscles build up tension.

His hands and heartbeat are steady.

Rinkside, Yakov grumbles something incoherent, the way he always gets before big things, and Lilia tells him to dance anew his beauty into the halls of time, which is the way _she_ always gets. From the stands comes a call of _“Davai!_ ” that Yuri hasn’t realized he’s been waiting for until now; something within him relaxes, settles like another center of gravity that has nothing to do with physical balance. He finds Otabek, easy to pick out in his Kazakhstan jacket, and nods to him before he goes to center ice.

His music begins; he curves into it, a spiral into his triple axel.

Once he’s in the air—it’s a perfect jump, one of the ones that sings—his mental camera disappears and all that’s left is him.

There is music and there is ice and there is the chilled air above the ice brushing his face, his hands, rippling the fabric of his sleeves. The music carries him through his year of changes, uncertainty where there was once stability, tension where there used to be only ease, question after question and he still doesn’t have answers: is he Yuri again? Can he be the same Yuri again? Does he even want to be?

He two-foots his quad Salchow, but he is unshaken. It would be _nice_ if skating stayed as effortless as it had been when he was fifteen, but he can’t lie to himself; the new feeling of power, victory, when he gets it right—quad toe loop into a triple toe loop, devouring ice—is too good to want to give up, regardless of the cost, even when it’s hard—

And he’s in his final pose after his combination spin, arms extended to each side, palms up and empty, head back. He’s reminded of the audience’s existence when a very well-aimed snow leopard plush hits his shoulder; he catches it reflexively and takes his bows.

It’s his best score this season—not a career record, but after the last year it feels like a medal in its own right—and second only to Katsuki’s, so far. At the kiss-and-cry, Lilia says, “You are beginning to understand,” which is overwrought crap, but she rests her hand briefly and gently against his back. Yakov only hugs him, wordless.

He somehow stays _there_ , in that space of silence and tension and, etched onto his bones despite its newness, the acceptance that there _will be_ tension now, that it’s now part of the ice. It remains even after he changes out of his skates and zips up his Team Russia jacket, even after he sits next to Otabek in the stands, props his sneakers on the back of the row in front and hunches forward, his elbows on his knees. His own little quiet space, a piece of calm that feels like a respite.

“Good?” Otabek says, just one word, barely inflected upward, and Yuri only nods in reply. He sees Otabek nod as well, out of the corner of his eye, as he repeats, “Good.” Statement. Then he gets up; his group is next, and Phichit, last performer in group four, is on already.

Yuri rests, stretching in the ways he’s figured out to do while in an arena seat and watching Phichit gleam through a program that might not be a masterpiece of technical elements—one quad, but clean and…sprightly, which is not a word one can usually apply to jumps—but it’s fun as hell. He’s moved on from that movie-musical series, for this season’s SP at least, but he’s kept all the entertainment Yuri can remember from last year’s programs. The difference: this year, Yuri feels it, instead of scoffing.

Phichit’s score is solid; he’s easily going to qualify for the free skates. So will Lee. Nikiforov, the Katsudon, Giacometti, Crispino, Nekola, and Ji Guanghong are all givens; Leo de la Iglesia and, surprisingly, JJ are maybes; Mousseau’s name isn’t anywhere on the scoreboards, or online, which means—

He looks up as the last group’s warmup starts. There’s Mousseau, just ahead of Otabek. Alain’s SP outfit has a goddamn cravat; he looks like a nineteenth-century vampire who stole a France jacket. Otabek’s costume—what’s visible of it, what Yuri remembers from the GP—is gold and turquoise and white, and it suits him far more than the cravat does Mousseau.

No one does anything too exciting in the warmup, although it’s at least amusing to watch the flutz that ends in a fall, as executed by a Spanish guy. He picks himself up, dusts himself off, and skates away with his nose in the air. Otabek is quiet, a couple doubles and a sketch of a step sequence, a handful of spins. If he’s planning on hauling out any brand-new jumps for the second year in a row—not like there are many left—he’s not letting on.

 _Of course he’s not letting on, Plisetsky._ Yuri shakes his head at himself.

The rest of the skaters disappear; Otabek steps off the ice briefly, pulls off his warmup jacket and hands it to Karim, then goes back to the rink. He and Karim barely speak—a couple words from Karim, a nod from Otabek. A couple more words from Karim and Otabek half-laughs, shakes his head.

Just before they announce him, Yuri cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, _“Davai!_ ”

Otabek looks straight at him, eyes crinkled at the corners, and nods.

His full costume is good, as Yuri remembered: a midthigh-length open vest (it pretends; it’s sewn to the side seams of his top) with gold trim and embroidery over a bright white shirt with more gold at the cuffs, trousers to match. Otabek waves at the crowd, which is finally giving him the recognition he goddamn deserves, as he goes to center ice.

Yuri’s seen Otabek skate this twice already, not counting videos, but he’s still—it’s impossible _not_ to watch him. Choreography he spent the entire summer complaining about (although he’s Otabek, so that means saying _choreo today_ with a trace of thundercloud eyebrows), then soaring into his triple axel, which remains a marvel. Spirals, spins, a quad loop-triple flip combination—he two-foots the flip landing—all of it in that clean, crisp style that could be drawn with a compass and protractor, _if_ the ink was lightning. Triple Salchow-single loop-triple toe loop—supposed to be a quad sal—and his combination spin, in which his free leg in his camel is _perfect_ , and he closes, spine straight and head high, arms wide at waist level and one leg kicked out behind for stability.

He scores well, within a point of Crispino, who’s a mere five points from Nikiforov, who is only two below Yuri himself, and the rest of the men in his group—including Mousseau—are nowhere near the same league. Mousseau is the only one with a base score that could possibly put him close, but he falls twice during his embarrassment of swoony pop music—he’s trying to pull a Giacometti, which is a trick, because Giacometti himself barely gets away with it. Still, when Otabek comes back out to the stands, Yuri sees his eyebrows and the tightness of his mouth and just says, “Yeah.”

Otabek shakes his head. “Dunno what that was. Skipped my stupid music ritual. Shouldn’t have thrown me off like _that_.”

“Camel spin, though,” Yuri says. “Good free leg.”

“Spins don’t win medals.”

It would be against his personal morals to argue, because Otabek is right—Yuri knows this with particular bitterness. He just repeats, grimly, “Yeah.”

They’re polite and stay in the arena seats for the last four skaters, silent but comfortably so. Then it’s time to face the press; Yuri prepares to find Yakov, mostly by listening for Viktor yodeling or whatever, but first he grabs Otabek’s shoulder and says, “You’re _doing_ your goddamn secret project on Sunday. No excuses.”

Otabek’s jaw goes tight. “Hold up your end, asshole.”

Yuri grins. “I plan to.”

***

[March 30, 2016, 22:46 EDT, Boston, MA, USA/March 31, 2016, 08:46 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

 **feruzaaa:** otash just watched u  
**feruzaaa:** SUPER good omg  
**otabek_a:** it’s fifth.  
**feruzaaa:** U CAN WORK W/ 5TH  
**feruzaaa:** also were those the dulcet tones of yuri plisetsky bellowing b4 ur intro  
**otabek_a:** they were.  
**feruzaaa:** i am so happy i made that happen  
**otabek_a:** feru, sorry, I’m really tired.  
**feruzaaa:** it’s ok pls dont apologize  
**feruzaaa:** love u  
**otabek_a:** love you too. goodnight.

[22:50 EDT/08:50 ALMT]

 **feruzaaa:** yuri plisetsky gj on ur SP  
**feruzaaa:** mousseau SUCKED omg  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ikr lol  
**feruzaaa:** look tho have u talked to otash?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** who  
**feruzaaa:** ha ha.  
**yuri_plisetsky:** actually havnt seen him since press hm  
**feruzaaa:** im worried hes moping :c  
**feruzaaa:** hes in his room afaik can u go see him?  
**yuri_plisetsky:** im rly bad @ moping  
**yuri_plisetsky:** like RLY BAD  
**feruzaaa:** w/e just be annoying until he laughs  
**yuri_plisetsky:** o  
**yuri_plisetsky:** in that case  
**yuri_plisetsky:** ON IT

Otabek is in sweats and one of his oldest t-shirts, ready to listen to NIN’s most apocalyptic album while mentally replaying the flaws in his jumps until he passes out, but someone knocks on the door of his room. If it’s Seung-gil, he’s going to—

“Want to watch something dumb?” Yuri asks, before Otabek has the door open all the way. He’s wearing leopard-print pajama bottoms an inch too short in the leg and a black hoodie, shower-wet hair falling around his face and phone in hand.

Otabek does not allow himself to sag against the doorframe. He gives _something_ away, though, and Yuri says quickly, “It’s short. Like twenty seconds.”

“If it’s forum crap—”

“Like I’d haul my ass up three flights to show you _forum crap_.”

Which is fair. Otabek waves him in and presses at his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he drops them, Yuri is sitting cross-legged at the end of Otabek’s bed, apparently not registering that Otabek is, at present, an asocial sack of self-loathing. “It’s good, I promise,” he says. Otabek sighs audibly. Yuri gives him a fake scowl and points at the mattress next to him. “Sit.”

He sits.

Yuri holds his phone between them and presses play on a Youtube video.

The screen shows a white parrot with a crest in someone’s house, which is only understandable as pale hardwood flooring, a stack of white plastic storage bins, and, inexplicably, numerous brightly colored plastic cups, like parts of a dozen stacking toys for toddlers, in disarray. The parrot—a cockatoo?—is perched on the edge of one of the bins, holding on with one talon. In the other talon, it holds a bright red cup.

Slowly, the cockatoo lifts the cup up to and over its sizeable beak, yells into it—a strangely human noise—and lowers the cup.

Then does it again.

A third time.

A fourth, and this time it leaves the cup there and yells again, on a different pitch.

The video ends. It’s sixteen seconds long.

The absurdity of it is so complete that Otabek just says, baffled, “Play it again.”

Yuri does.

“One more.” Something out-of-place is rising in his chest. “Again.”

On the second cup-lift-scream cycle in the fourth viewing, the thing in his chest shatters into laughter. The deliberation of the cockatoo’s movement, the way its crest rises each time it calls, the silence of the video aside from this bird shouting into this cup—

“Told you it was good,” Yuri says, and springs to his feet. “’Night.”

“Send me the URL.”

“Already did.” The door latch clicks.

***

Seung-gil finds him at breakfast the next day, before Yuri’s appeared in the hotel ballroom repurposed for skater-feeding. “Hang out tonight,” Seung-gil says in a low voice as he sits. He doesn’t have any food.

Otabek blinks.

“Take the edge off.” Seung-gil watches him, eyes blank.

“You need to get better at this,” Otabek says, while he’s figuring out what he thinks about the invitation and its delivery as an order.

“Works well enough for you.”

 _Wait_. Otabek checks the date; he’s right. “It’s Yuri’s birthday.”

Seung-gil folds his hands on the table. “And,” he says flatly.

“And I’m going to see if he wants to do something,” Otabek replies, and adds, “Sorry.”

“Ditching me for a sixteen-year-old. Huh.”

Otabek feels himself go cold. “What?”

“Right, seventeen.” He gets up as suddenly as he’d sat. “People don’t think that, by the way. Might start if you keep reacting like that.” Seung-gil leaves. Otabek doesn’t know where he goes, because he’s frozen, staring at the place where Seung-gil’s hands had been. There’s a divot in the table surface.

He realizes he’s gripping his spoon hard enough that it hurts, the edges of the metal digging into his palm. Moving slowly, feeling like he is a few miles away from his own body, Otabek places the spoon beside his half-finished oatmeal and flexes his fingers, eyes fixed on the tabletop divot and ice creeping up the back of his neck. _People don’t think that_. Where _that_ is—involvement, with a competitor, one who is two and a half years younger than he is, legally considered a minor in most countries, although as of _today_ he officially meets the age of consent in Kazakhstan and Russia, _as if that helps_.

It had come up at his first Grand Prix final, at the tail end of 2014, when the data available to the general public was much more easily assembled into something ugly. Especially with the GPF ads getting his _age_ wrong and then lagging in correcting it, despite Karim raising hell; for two days after the finalists were confirmed, the TV spots _worldwide_ were saying he was nineteen. That confusion, plus the media’s “kidnap” spin—he remembers the feeling like an iron claw closing around his ribcage when he first checked his email, until then something he skipped entirely at competitions, on Karim’s prompting. He still gets screeds denouncing him for being around Yuri off-ice at all. The emails are caught by one or more of about a dozen inbox filters he set up the day before Christmas 2014, routed into a folder named “tinhat,” and left to languish in cyberspace.

Every so often—okay, within a week after each time he and Yuri have competed in the same event, plus the time he was in St. Petersburg over the summer—he checks the numbers in the folder. They never rise by more than a trickle, single digits per month. He knows some of this is because of the timing; Nikiforov returned to competition within weeks of the GPF and the skating world had erupted in speculation about generational rivalry among the Russians. The three months of nothing about Otabek himself, before the Worlds roster was announced, had seemed to kill whatever fun there was in conspiracy theories for anyone who _wasn’t_ a tinhat. Sixteen months and—he has to count—four competitions later, he was almost certain the idea had died, until Seung-gil—

“You look like Potya working on a hairball.” He jolts and looks up as Yuri drops into the seat Seung-gil had vacated, holding a bowl (apple, two hardboiled eggs) in one hand and a mug in the other. “Oatmeal can’t be _that_ bad today.”

Otabek blinks, attempting to put together a response. “It’s—” His voice is a bare scrape; he swallows hard. His skin crawls at the back of his neck.

Katsuki Yuuri sits down on his right and places his own oatmeal on the table. “I hope it’s not,” he says, in response to Yuri. “Good morning, Otabek.”

“Morning,” he replies dully. At least his voice works this time.

Yuri is watching him, eyes narrowed, as he stirs three packets of not-sugar and one of actual sucrose into his coffee. Otabek looks away and picks up his spoon again, not that he feels like eating anymore. _Might start thinking that if…_

“I was thinking,” Yuuri says, without seeming to notice anything. “Since it’s your birthday, Yurio—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“We can’t get a cake or anything,” he goes on, unruffled, “unless it’s the saddest cake ever, but what if we went to see a movie together this afternoon? The three of us and Viktor, and whoever else—”

Yuri whacks one of his hardboiled eggs against the table and starts picking at the shell. “Nah,” he says. “Women’s short programs at noon. Watching Mila. And whatsername.”

“Sara?”

“That’s what I said,” Yuri says, having said nothing of the sort. He’s concentrating, peeling off the eggshell in strips with a degree of focus suitable for defusing a bomb.

Otabek catches Yuuri’s eyeroll before he tries again. “Right. We’ll be there too. What about afterward?”

“Eh.” Yuri eats the unpeeled egg in two bites, now watching Otabek out of the corner of his eye.

He knows Yuri is watching him because he is consciously tracking the frequency with which he looks up from his oatmeal, which is congealing into rubber as it cools, no matter how he pokes at it with his spoon. He counts in cycles of five, glancing up at Yuri on three, down on four, at Yuuri on five. It’s approximately average, he thinks. He’s still trying to talk himself down, but the conversation is flowing as normal.

Breakfast is normal. Everything is normal, and Yuuri is trying to include him in this very normal existence, saying, “Otabek, what are your plans for today?”

 _Detaching from the ceiling._ Otabek rolls his neck, in hopes of shaking the creeping sensation.  “Not sure—”

“Come to ladies’ SPs,” Yuri says. As much of an order as Seung-gil’s directives, but it’s softened by Yuri kicking at one of the legs of his chair. The skill of padding demands via kicking—

Otabek stares at the spoon in his hand. Sixteen months ago, Yuri Plisetsky had said, eyes wide with shock, _During competition?_ And, _I had a fucking program to skate_. And, the closest he’d come to actually losing his composure, _you honestly believed this shit?_

And since then, sure, there was the thing with Mousseau, demonstrating that Yuri has—loosened up, or grown up, or whatever, but that too is normal.

And, Otabek realizes, his _personal_ normal now just includes Yuri, seamlessly. The adjustment process took all of three days. Ever since Yuri clambered up into the DJ booth in Barcelona, he’s just _been_ there, in person or not—yelling about Otabek’s free leg and texting him bizarre videos and dragging him through cities on different sides of the planet to meet his grandpa and watch penguins. He’s never had to—get _used_ to being around Yuri, the way he’s still working on becoming accustomed to Katsuki Yuuri and Nikiforov, the way Mila’s texts still catch him by surprise. He never feels wrongfooted around Yuri.

It’s the precise opposite of the balancing act that is interacting substantively with Seung-gil, where “substantive” means anything where their shirts stay on. It strikes him that this is an odd point for comparison, considering the reason he’s overthinking all of this in the first place, and maybe that’s worth further analysis—

But not right now. Sixteen months later, he finally fully appreciates Yuri’s point regarding priorities during competition.

And he wants to see Mila perform her SP again. “All right,” he says. “Text me her group number.” He abandons the pretense of eating, finishes his coffee—lukewarm, gone in two gulps—and gets up. As does Yuri, shoving the remainder of his second egg into his face, sticking the apple in his hoodie pocket, and balling up the napkin covered in bits of shell. It would be not normal for Otabek to protest, so he just says, “Bye, Yuuri,” and goes to deal with his dishes. Yuri follows, slurping at his coffee as he walks.

“You still look hairball-y,” Yuri informs him after they drop their dishes in one of the bins.

“Do I,” says Otabek. He has no idea what ‘hairball-y’ actually means, in terms of the arrangement of his or any other human’s facial features.

“Was that Lee? When we came in?”

He feels like the time between Seung-gil leaving and Yuri appearing was much, much longer, but then again, the particular variety of self-conscious paranoia he gets stuck in makes everything feel interminable. “Yeah.”

“What’d he do?” demands Yuri.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” he says, matter-of-fact.

Otabek looks at Yuri, and remembers him saying, _They should know better._ He also remembers, again, that Yuri has been a standing fixture on the skating-oriented Internet since he was about twelve. “It was bullshit,” he agrees, and continues in an undertone, although the other people in the hallway are all involved in their own conversations. “Rumors. Asked me to—hang out, you know, tonight—” voicing _hook up_ anywhere within earshot of _anyone_ in this hotel is never going to happen— “and I said I’d talk plans with you first. Because of your birthday.”

“So he implied we were—”

“Said he was joking. But yeah.”

Astonishingly, Yuri grins. “He likes you,” he says, stretching out the word _like_ to seven syllables and pitching it into falsetto.

It’s such a non-sequitur, so tonally at odds with his mental maelstrom, and the delivery so bizarre—Yuri, of all people, sing-songing like he’s in primary school—that Otabek laughs outright. “ _What?_ ”

Yuri clears his throat and puts on a very serious expression. “Point one. Gets mean when _not even actually_ turned down for hanging out. Point two. Gets mean _about_ whoever else you’re hanging out with. Not like _that_ , but still. Point three. He’s clearly jealous. Therefore.”

The oddest part of his logic is that it’s relatively sound. However, though: “Says the expert. Not knowing whether you could get dumped until you weren’t.”

Aggrieved, or looking it, Yuri puts a hand to his chest. “I was _only_ sixteen, Otabek.”

“Five weeks ago.”

He drops his hand and says, “Did I tell you he texted me? And I _didn’t_ tell him to go fuck himself?”

“You called him a dipshit, though. Happy birthday, Yuri.”

“Yeah, whatever. He _is_ a dipshit.” Yuri shrugs, and then seems to remember something. “I promised your sister to annoy you out of any moping. How’m I doing?”

This is—far less of a surprise than it should be, and he has a vague sense he _should be_ annoyed, if he were even half as reticent as his media image, but the idea of Feruza directing Yuri Plisetsky around for his sake— “You are very annoying,” Otabek replies.

“ _Good._ ” He looks delighted with himself.

***

Before the women’s SPs are anywhere near over, it’s clear that Sara Crispino and Mila Babicheva are going to finish first and second. Mila apparently texts Yuri once Sara’s moved on from the kiss-and-cry, because he glowers at his phone and says, “C’mon. The witch has issued a summons. Not Lilia, the other one.”

In one hallway leading off the rink, around a corner and out of sight of assorted cameras and audience members, the girls—women? When does Mila become an adult? She’s his age—are swapping kisses and praise, which makes something in Otabek’s chest go warm with sympathetic happiness, if there is such a thing. When she sees Yuri, Mila breaks away and grins. “Hi, Otabek! Yurochka! We’re just waiting for Vitya and Yuuri—”

“Waiting for _what_ ,” Yuri demands, but he lets the front dissolve immediately. “You were great, baba. You too, Sara.”

In costume and performance makeup, both of them are sort of terrifying. Mila’s curly red bob has been transformed, possibly via supernatural means, into an approximation of a French twist, one curl left free; Sara is wearing a sleek bun; both have high-contrast lip color, heavy eyeliner, and exceedingly waterproof mascara. Combined with the rhinestone-covered costumes of illusion netting and silky fabric (Mila’s is purple with a midriff cut; Sara’s pale blue) beneath their jackets, it’s a little blinding, even under the crap fluorescent lighting. Otabek is nearly used to Mila and Sara in person, in practice gear or street clothes, but this is… something else.

“Thanks, Yuri!” Sara says brightly.

Mila intones, “ _Family photos_ ,” with unholy glee.

Yuri groans as Nikiforov and Katsuki approach, Yuuri soft-faced in glasses and both of them wearing warmup clothes. Like Yuri and Otabek, for that matter; neither bothered to change after a morning of off-ice training, because they’re both going back to their coaches after this.

“Otabek, could you do the honors?” Mila asks, holding out her phone. He takes it—the camera app is already open—because what else is he supposed to do? The loner gets to play photographer for the charisma magnets. “Vitya, Yuuri, on Yurochka’s other side. Sara—” Instead of giving instructions, she pulls Sara close by the waist and kisses her cheek. “Right here,” she says. “Otabek, ready?”

“Yeah. On three—”

Yuri looks murderous in the resulting photo; Mila’s grin goes feral. “ _Perfect_.” Then she surprises him. “Otabek, now, come here—” She yanks on his arm until he’s standing immediately next to her and Sara, then snaps a picture of the three of them in which Sara is pouting artfully, Mila is still wearing that wild grin, and he looks…bemused. But pleased.

Over the next ten minutes, he’s tagged in six separate Instagram posts on four accounts, with some linear combination of Mila and Sara, Viktor, Yuuri, and Yuri in each picture. They’re all captioned “#honoraryTeamRussia #skatesquad #worlds2016,” with the Kazakh, Italian, and Japanese flags as applicable, depending on who’s actually in them. Sara and Mila head off to change out of skates and meet their coaches for the press, while Viktor and Yuuri go back to training, at which point Yuri nonchalantly extracts the phone from Otabek’s jacket pocket. Yuri opens the camera app and swaps it to selfie mode, holding it in front of both of them.

“Yuri—”

“You haven’t posted anything from here yet.”

“Everyone else has—”

“ _Everyone else_ isn’t _me_ , so you’re _posting this,_ ” Yuri says, and takes the picture. “As my birthday present,” he adds, returning Otabek’s phone.

It’s a good one, Otabek admits to himself, in that it’s very—characteristic. He’s mid-eyeroll, one side of his mouth lifted; Yuri is fake-scowling and throwing a peace sign. Otabek opens Instagram and types for a little, then listens for the _ping_ from Yuri’s own phone. Yuri checks the post and nods, apparently satisfied.

_happy birthday to unrepentant phone thief @yuri-plisetsky. #worlds2016 #honoraryteamkazakhstan?_

***

Yuri is pleased with training that afternoon. Two near-perfect run-throughs of his free skate, for all that Yakov yells at him when he swaps his planned triple loop for a quad on the fly. And he knows Yakov—he’s mostly pissed because the quad loop wasn’t where he fucked up.

Between training and dinner, Yuri buys mini-muffins, the little gooey ones with chocolate chips. He tells Phichit and Chris Giacometti—asks, whatever—to eat with Honorary Team Russia, as they’re apparently calling themselves now. On Chris’s arrival at the table, Otabek looks fleetingly confused, which is at least different from the stoniness that fell every time he was within twenty feet of Lee on the ice this afternoon.

“Chris is leading the old man’s wedding crew,” Yuri mutters to Otabek, by way of explanation.

“Best man,” Otabek replies. “That’s called a best man.”

This is useless information. “He likes cats.” Which is _vital_ information.

“He should,” says Otabek.

After the meal, or at least after he personally is done eating and anyone who hasn’t can just deal with mixing courses, Yuri distributes the mini-muffins, one each—the most in the way of empty-calorie sweets any of them will see before the banquet in three days. Katsuki and Nikiforov insist on singing the stupid song, and Yuri _feels_ himself go crimson as the rest of the table—then the rest of the _ballroom_ —joins in. There’s applause, and Yuri sinks in his seat, muttering an assortment of his favorite Lilia-banned expressions in Russian.

“I don’t think that’s actually physically possible,” Otabek says under his breath in English.

Yuri snorts and sits up straight again.

***

Restless, still shaking off the anxiety from the morning, Otabek is heading back to the practice rink an hour or so after dinner when Seung-gil catches up with him. “Really, no one thinks that,” he says, as if no time has passed at all.

He feels the same crawl of anxiety—but it drowns under anger, warm and steadying. “And yet you’re saying it,” Otabek replies, and is surprised at the mildness of his own tone. “We’re friends.”

“No one’s friends with Plisetsky.”

“I am,” he says, pleasantly. “Get that in your head or fuck off.”

He can tell Seung-gil is staring at him; Otabek keeps his eyes forward. “You’re serious,” Seung-gil says, after a moment.

“No shit.”

“He’s a _rival_.”

“ _You’re_ a rival.”

“We’re not _friends_ , though.”

That makes Otabek turn his head. “Really.”

“Hookups aren’t,” Seung-gil says, but he almost sounds uncertain. “I mean, not hooking up with you is okay—”

 _Fuck’s sake_. “Good,” Otabek interrupts, “because it’s not happening again.”

Seung-gil blinks, eyes weirdly orange under the streetlights. “What?”

“Do I need to repeat myself?” But the anger is gone, thin sadness in its place—on Seung-gil’s behalf. “Whatever,” he says, because Seung-gil is pacing him, visibly confused. “Fuck with someone else.” He keeps walking as Seung-gil goes still; when he glances over his shoulder, Seung-gil is gone.

***

Yuri’s running his exhibition piece as a sort of good-luck charm when he sees a dark-haired figure with suspiciously calm eyebrows step out of the lockers in blade guards. Otabek does laps while Yuri finishes his run-through, pulls out his earbuds, and skates over. “Oi,” he says. “You okay?”

Otabek looks at him sharply. “I’m fine.”

“Really. You don’t do late-night skating.”

“I might.”

“You _don’t_ ,” Yuri says. “I’ve been here every night but yesterday.”

“Change in routine.”

“Like hell. What’d Lee do?”

Otabek sighs audibly. “Nothing.” He shoots another look at Yuri, like he’s waiting for him to argue; Yuri keeps his mouth shut. “I just told him to fuck off, is all. For the foreseeable future.”

“Probably needed to fuck off, then,” Yuri says. He trusts Otabek’s judgment. And Lee is a dick. He isn’t sure if there’s anything else he should say; it’s not a _breakup,_ strictly speaking, which is good because the form of support Mila prefers—ice cream and vodka—is out of the question the night before the free skate. On the other hand, it’s not _nothing_. The 2014 NHK Trophy was, after all, well over a year ago.

“No,” Otabek says, and Yuri is briefly worried, before Otabek finishes speaking. “Definitely needed to fuck off. So. Race you this lap.”

He pushes off without waiting for Yuri to answer, which is just fucking rude. Yuri takes off after him, swearing.

***

On Friday night for the free skate, they’re split into four groups based on SP scores. Their group—Christophe Giacometti, Otabek Altin, Michele Crispino, Viktor Nikiforov, Yuri Plisetsky, and Katsuki Yuuri—is last. The space off the ice where they’re sent to warm up stays oddly convivial in atmosphere, considering the context. Except the context is that two of them are engaged, another two are best friends, another is best man in the engaged pair’s wedding, and—well, the last is Crispino. Who _is_ invited, because (Otabek knows too much about this because Yuri does) it’d be rude to leave out Mila’s plus-one’s twin, but he’s already made it clear he won’t be attending, in favor of—something. Yuri hadn’t pursued that point, which means Otabek doesn’t know it, either.

Otabek feels himself settle into his performance headspace, where his movement is all that matters. It had been shaky on Wednesday; today it’s like a layer of cool glass separating him from shit that doesn’t matter—which is so _much_ shit. Seung-gil, in group three, claims a spot across the corridor and cuts his eyes at him, at which point Otabek merely nods (he’s not even _mad_ at the guy; it just seems like his head must be a weird, sad space to live) and turns up his music. No more than two minutes later, Seung-gil’s moving off somewhere else, his coach following and looking like she’d dearly love to strangle something.

In the six-minute warmup, he flubs an easy double, recovers seamlessly, and nods at Katsuki Yuuri, who’s looking at him with unnecessary (but sweet) concern, before he takes off in a spiral. Off the ice, he has ten minutes—hazards of being second, but nothing really registers as _annoying_ when he’s in this mood. He plays through his program music, mentally mapping each measure to what his body will be doing, the shapes his hands will make.

The bit of real-person Otabek who remains is reminded of how pleased he is with the piece. It’s based on a specific motif performed as a solo in the last movement of an early-twentieth-century tone poem; he had no use for the martial mood of the rest of the movement—that was last year’s shit—but the solo had struck him, and he’d asked Feruza what she thought about an adaptation of it and the score. He’d meant to get her opinion; she’d scored a four-and-a-half-minute arrangement elaborating on the solo and, two weeks later, sent him a link to a MIDI file: OTASHSKATE-MOCKUP. _This’ll at least let you get a feel for it._

In the next two months _,_ she scared up (probably literally, in a few cases) a girl who specialized in weirder variants of double reeds, a pianist, and a double handful of string players, plus a couple percussionists she trusted and a brass quintet she didn’t absolutely despise, and in the third week of September she delivered the MP3. The only information he and Karim _can_ submit for the piece is “ _Appian Way Variation_ ,” which is infuriating—and Feruza brushes it off, calls it good experience and worth the class credit.

His playthrough is over before he can finish being proud, which is self-evident, because he’s never going to stop being proud of Feruza. Karim gives him a thumbs-up and flashes five fingers. Otabek swipes to his metal list, hits play on a track he’d decided on during the warmup period, and resumes stretching.

When it’s over, he wraps his earbud cords around his phone, sticks the phone in his jacket pocket, and hands that to Karim. At the side of the rink, they’re quiet, Karim’s hand on his shoulder and Otabek’s head down, looking at the ice between his blades, feeling peace in the space between his ribs.

 _“Davai._ ”

He looks up.

Yuri is about ten meters off, blue-green high-necked costume collar just visible beneath his Russia jacket; he shouldn’t even be on the floor. Otabek meets his eyes and nods, remembering his half-encouragement, half-challenge from Wednesday: _No excuses_. Yuri looks back levelly, distant and almost cold. As Otabek starts to turn away from the boards, his face changes, shark smile flashing—steely recognition of a challenge accepted. Otabek’s performance calm, the wall of glass, shifts effortlessly to accommodate that steel; it coats his bones, his soul, with shining surety.

He feels it as his sister’s music begins: this is a charmed skate, an invisible pattern that only he can reveal, using his body and blades. The mood of the _Variation_ is contemplative at first, smooth movements and a precise, thoughtful step sequence, flashes of what might come to be in his quad loop, his axel, his quad flip combo. Gradually, the music morphs into resolve, anticipation of triumph—not actual triumph, yet, but envisioning it is nearly as good—

When he’s finished, he can’t hear the audience over the sound of his own heartbeat, but the pattern is complete, and it is perfect.

He scores a new personal best. Karim claps once when the numbers pop up, saying, “Fucking _rocked_ that shit,” despite the camera ten feet away that is clearly recording. (The woman behind the camera winces.)

Otabek can’t think of broadcast-friendly ways to verbally express _thank you for swearing like a normal person_ , so he just hugs his coach. It feels like an appropriate time to.

He’s happy to watch Crispino and Nikiforov—particularly the latter, whose program is an artistic masterpiece even though it lacks his pre-partial-retirement stacks of otherworldly jumps. He acknowledges, with no shame, that he’s even happier about their FS scores. They’re respectable—they’re objectively great _—_ and _yet_ , combined with their SPs, they still leave Crispino and Viktor six and three points below him, respectively. Giacometti’s combined score is between theirs.

The implication of this registers a moment after Nikiforov’s score is announced. It strikes Karim at the same time, apparently; he grabs his elbow just as Otabek feels lightning shoot down his spine, as his heart leaps.

He’s on the podium.

“Three for three,” Karim mutters, and if he sounds choked up, Otabek certainly isn’t going to point it out.

He hadn’t even considered the possibility of a comeback from fifth.

Yuri is stepping onto the ice. His hair is gathered into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, just above the collar of his shirt; Otabek somehow hasn’t realized until now that it’s gotten that long, enough that the braids and twists from last season aren’t necessary anymore. His costume—blue-green shirt with a high, notched collar and close-fitting sleeves, trimmed in minimal silvery-gold piping, narrow-cut black trousers with the same trim down the side seams—emphasizes his new height, the angularity of his form.

His coaches are at the boards; Lilia Baranovskaya speaks and Yuri meets her eyes directly, face still and serious, nodding at intervals. Yakov is silent until Yuri touches his shoulder and raises an eyebrow, which makes the man _laugh_ , something Otabek’s never seen before.

As Yuri turns, Otabek calls out, “ _Davai,_ ” and Yuri glances over and nods, with a twist to his mouth like he’s acknowledging a co-conspirator.

His free program is a tumble of piano over a symphonic background, with exactly none of the tension that drives his SP. The music itself rejoices in artistry and the pianist’s skill; Yuri’s program is delight in movement, and he _has_ it, despite the entire last year. The choreography is Baranovskaya all the way through, but Yuri is built for it from his soul outward, steps and hops and spins and all accompanied by fluid arcs carved in the air with his arms, his spine, and—

Yuri’s quad Salchow is fucking beautiful, there’s no other word for it, and after a short return to choreography-land his triple axel could cut glass, it’s that clean and sharp ( _nearly_ as good as his own). The music calms into a truly weird chord progression, through which Yuri spirals in a half-Biellmann, still a perfect arc from neck to knee, and a triple flip (two-footed) while the music is still figuring out what to do next, and as it builds, a quad toe loop-triple loop—he steps out of the loop landing—and a beauty of a step sequence, light on his blades and liquid through the rest of his body.

Yakov, Yuri, and Lilia have been adjusting the program all season, and so while Otabek’s seen it five times over, this specific version is new and—entrancing. The energy in his quad Salchow combination (perfect), the lightness of a split jump leading to a quad loop—it was _supposed_ to be a triple, Otabek had heard Yakov yesterday, and Yuri touches ice with one hand when he lands it, but he has all the rotations—and in the last minute and ten seconds (when Otabek picked up the musical cues for _Yuri’s_ free skate is a mystery) he flings off a triple Lutz and a triple loop—both clean, one arm raised—before his combination spin, flying camel into half-Biellmann into a sit spin and a twist variant before he pulls upright, effortless. On the last chords he steps away from the spin and slides into a deep lunge, chin high, arms spread wide, and he’s _smiling_ , just the least bit, pride and pleasure and satisfaction all right there in the slight curve of his mouth.

Otabek only realizes he’s shouting as he applauds when Karim joins him.

Yuri takes his bows, scooping up a cheetah plush and a bouquet. At the K&C, Yakov hands him his jacket and water bottle before ripping into him, probably for trying the quad loop when he knew he had deductions to make up for. Lilia, meanwhile, is dabbing daintily at her eyes with a handkerchief, and when Yakov’s finished, she merely shakes her head and says something brief, without even looking at Yuri. Yuri glances at her, eyes wide, and swallows visibly. A compliment, in that case.

It’s his best free skate of the season, and this is the first time his base score is actually higher than Otabek’s. But the deductions—

Yuri’s total score, free skate plus short program, neatly bisects the gap between Nikiforov and Otabek.

Otabek sees the instant when Yuri realizes it, as a second lightning bolt strikes his own spine. It’s hard to miss, because Yuri’s jaw actually drops, and Otabek starts making his way to the K&C without thinking, half-watching the rink as he navigates stairs and audience members and skaters.

Katsuki’s at the boards, and Nikiforov in his role as coach—and _not a medalist at Worlds_ , for the first time in seven _years_ —is pressing his lips to Yuuri’s gold ring. Instead of blushing adorably, as usual, Yuuri one-ups him, except by a million: he pulls their clasped hands toward his chest and kisses Viktor outright. The screaming from the audience alone is enough to know it’s a hell of a kiss, if anyone happens to miss the convenient stories-high projections on the screens suspended from the arena’s rafters.

Then Yuuri breaks away, smiles sweetly at Viktor, and waves to the audience as he practically skips to the middle of the rink.

Somehow, Otabek is going to their wedding in nine weeks.

As Katsuki’s music starts, Otabek reaches the floor and finds Yuri standing right in front of him. Approximately standing—he’s in constant small-scale motion, hands in his pockets drumming something on his own hipbones, left knee locking and unlocking over and over. But he goes still when he notices Otabek.

They look at each other, Yuri’s eyes huge in his sharp face. Otabek himself is—he can’t describe it; he’s breathless, and there are too many possible things to say, and _all of them_ are good and simultaneously insufficient—

Yuri beats him to it. “ _Did it,”_ he says, low and fierce, and suddenly he’s hugging Otabek hard, the zipper on his jacket digging into Otabek’s chest; Otabek wraps his own arms around Yuri’s midsection and feels him shaking, from elation or physical exhaustion or voiceless laughter or all three.

“ _You’re_ skating your secret _fucking_ project, you cryptic fucking bastard,” Yuri continues, mouth right next to his ear in a voice that’s half a laugh, and the medal high shoots another lightning bolt down Otabek’s spine, tingles over his skin. He starts laughing; he can’t help it.

“Congratulations,” he replies.

“Whatever, you beat me,” Yuri says, and squeezes him tightly in a rustle of nylon. “Next year, fucker,” he adds, almost inaudible, before he pulls away and turns to the rink.

 _Next year._ Of course. Otabek faces the rink as well, because Katsuki Yuuri is always worth watching, unless you’re busy being sworn at by your best friend who just earned bronze at Worlds. Yuuri is almost halfway through his program, in the middle of his own indescribably gorgeous step sequence; his music is an orchestral variation on a Japanese shakuhachi folk song ( _wrong island_ , Yuuri had noted wryly at some point, _but it’s still—you know_ ). The bursts of applause that Otabek vaguely registered—plus the way Viktor’s eyes are shining—suggest that Yuuri’s nailed his jumps so far, and that doesn’t change in the last half. The cheering starts when he lands his quad flip; it doesn’t let up for a full minute.

“That’s two,” Yuri says, before Katsuki’s score is anywhere near calculated, but it’s obvious already. “Think he can do three more?”

“Yes,” Otabek replies immediately.

“Of course _you’d_ say that.” Then Yuri winces. “Uh.”

It takes him a moment to put the pieces together, before Otabek sighs. “I never should have let you meet Feruza.”

“But you did,” Yuri says, eyes glued to the screens as the score comes up: Katsuki’s own record from last year still stands, but now it’s held by a _two_ -time world champion. “You _suggested_ it.”

“Dunno what I was thinking.”

“Something boring. You need us, see.”

For once, Otabek is the one to elbow Yuri, who yelps before he cracks up.

***

[April 1, 2016, 22:58 EDT, Boston, MA, USA/April 2, 2016, 08:58 ALMT, Almaty, Kazakhstan]

 **otabek_a:** secret project Sunday around 3:30PM here  
**otabek_a:** 1:30AM Monday for you. inconvenient.  
**feruzaaa:** OTASH  
**feruzaaa:** INCONVENIENCE IS NOTHING  
**feruzaaa:** i will be WATCHING THAT SHIT  
**feruzaaa:** my entire dORM watched yuri  & u & EVERYONE screamed for u BOTH  
**otabek_a:** Monday is a school night, feru.  
**feruzaaa:** pls feel free to ask  
**feruzaaa:** whether I give A SINGLE TRACE OF A FUCK

***

On his second full day as the world’s third-best men’s figure skater in the senior division, Yuri blazes through his post-punk alt-rock exhibition program in the gala. His competition programs fit _better_ this year, but this is all him, and it’s got all the shit Lilia hates, and he _knows_ it’s too good of a skate for her to actually complain about _._ The arena is screaming for him and he’s vaguely aware he’s grinning like a fiend, scooping a lion plush off the ice and breathing hard as he waves.

He steps off the ice and nearly runs into Otabek.

“Looked good,” Otabek says, and Yuri would typically snarl that he _knows_ he’s good, but he’s busy evaluating. Rather than his New World costume of deep brown and gold, Otabek is wearing a plain black crewneck T-shirt, faded with cut-off sleeves, and grey stretch jeans riddled with holes. If he were anyone but himself, he’d be vibrating out of his skin; instead, he’s wearing his intensity eyebrows and working his jaw, arms folded across his chest.

Five or six neurons in the back of Yuri’s mind raise a question: when exactly it was that Otabek got _muscles_. He’s wiry, not built, but the _definition_ of his upper arms— _Later_ , he says firmly to himself.

“Thanks,” he replies, and has no time for anything else; Otabek sets off onto the rink, as the announcer presents Worlds 2016 silver medalist, nineteen-year-old Otabek Altin of Kazakhstan, and the audience breaks out in applause. Belatedly, Yuri yells, “ _Davai!_ ” at the top of his voice; Otabek glances over his shoulder and _grins_ , and then looks around and waves to acknowledge the audience’s cheers. He hits center and goes still.

An odd, waiting silence falls over the arena, even with the typical rustle of something like ten thousand people being unable to sit still. The world—the skating part of it, the part that sits in the audience at ISU championships—knows Kazakh men’s figure skater Otabek Altin by now. It should have known him a _long time ago_ , but it’s finally caught on, and it knows that his programs are technically astonishing, stylistically brutal, and unfailingly traditional.

It simply doesn’t know what to do with Otabek in a muscle shirt and shredded jeans.

Yuri realizes he’s grinning.

The arena lights drop, leaving one diffuse spot on Otabek, and the music cuts in, a prolonged screech of guitar distortion and feedback driven by cymbal hits; he skates a slow circle, once, twice, three times, tightens it into an upright spin, and then the beat explodes.

As does Otabek.

He cuts through crossovers, throws off a triple axel and a spread-eagle and another tighter spin, before suddenly everything in the music cuts but the drums and the vocals, which are somewhere between singing and a shout, and Otabek is—nearly blinding. Every single move of his step sequence fits precisely with the cymbal hits, before the guitars surface again and he’s flung himself into a Russian split before a toe loop, landing it just as the music cuts out again, leaving just the vocal:

_stone-cold crazy, oh_

On the ice, Otabek spirals, crossovers, picks up speed, and death drops— _there’s_ the fucking death drop—into a spin. He spirals and hops through a shredding solo, fires off a double something. A second step sequence when the guitars drop out, this verse shorter but his timing no less perfect, and he flings himself out of it into a combo jump. A longer guitar solo, his triple axel again, choreo, another _fucking_ death drop into a combination spin, sit to camel to one of those goofy incredible illusion spins.

His free leg is a mess. Yuri doesn’t give a shit.

Otabek breaks away into crossovers, which Yuri thinks might a way to let the guitar solo have its fun, but no—he hydroblades ( _hydroblades!_ ) and once he’s upright, throws out a triple-single-double combo, riding his own momentum out of the jump as the main guitar riff takes over again.   

The lead guitar drops out once more, and Otabek’s final step sequence—over just vocals and drums and a rattle of rhythm guitar—Yuri stops breathing.

It’s all footwork, twists and hops and kicks and the flash of blades under that spotlight, his upper body loose and moving however is necessary for balance—Lilia is probably having a stroke—because this is about technique and timing, this is about _look at what I’m fucking doing with myself_. On the last main riff, a double axel, followed by an upright spin with his arms tight over his chest. He stops the spin with a toe pick just as the song ends, shooting his arms straight out to either side with palms down— _cut_.

There’s a sliver of silence, and then a wordless howl that Yuri notes, belatedly, is tearing out of his own throat. The audience takes its cue, as it _goddamn should_ , and the resulting roar skitters around his ribcage.

Otabek breaks his pose and takes his bows, but then someone bellows “ROCK ON,” like an absolute hooligan, and he turns in their direction and pumps his arm in the air, throwing metal horns.

Somehow, the audience gets louder.

Chest heaving, Otabek skates back and forth, waving as thousands of people scream for him. He’s nearly expressionless, aside from a set to his jaw that’s all but demanding _how do you like me now?_ Finally, he nods at someone—probably an event officiator telling him to get a move on so the Katsudon can skate—and heads back toward the K&C.

Karim hands Otabek his blade guards once he’s off the ice; he leans against the boards to slide them on. Yuri feels a mad impulse to hug him again, like after the free skate, just fling himself over and stay there until the adrenaline rush passes.

He doesn’t, though, because really. Instead, Yuri steps over in his own guards and says, “I think they know the metalhead part now.”

The grin that breaks on Otabek’s face is so unfamiliar to the rest of the skaters and coaches hanging out just off the ice that a pocket of silence opens in the middle of the noise that is the rest of the arena. In that smile there’s slyness and triumph and pride and perfect joy, and something flutters oddly in Yuri’s stomach. “Maybe,” Otabek replies, as Karim hands him a water bottle and a towel. He slugs water and says, “Think they still like me?”

Yuri pretends to think about it, as the arena continues to lose its shit. “Difficult to say.” Otabek’s smile opens into simple unalloyed happiness, before Mila appears to lose her shit on an individual scale.

As she does, as she demands to know where the fuck _that_ came from without giving him a chance to answer, as Otabek just keeps smiling and taking gulps of water, the fluttery feeling rises into Yuri’s chest.

On an analytical level and as a person with eyes, Yuri has known, since the first night in Barcelona over a year ago, that Otabek is uncommonly attractive. He’s a figure skater; a lot of figure skaters are at the high end of the looks bell curve; it is therefore statistically reasonable—from what Yuri knows of statistics—that Otabek is one of them. _Now_ , though, his objective attractiveness abruptly transmutes to a decidedly subjective _wait, he’s hot._

Mila suddenly rounds on him. “Did _you_ know about this?” she asks sharply. Over her shoulder, Otabek is laughing silently, dabbing at his face and neck with the towel.

Yuri drags himself away from his what-the-fuck epiphany and replies, “Nope.”

“ _No?_ ” Mila sounds shocked.

“Well, okay,” Yuri says. “He mentioned he was working on _something_ at the beginning of the season—”

“An _entire season—_ ”

“Five years, actually,” says Otabek, mild, and Mila whips around to face him. “That’s been in the works five years. I suck at developing choreo.” He shrugs with one shoulder. “Feruza could tell you,” he says to Yuri.

“I believe you,” Yuri says.

Somewhere behind him, Yakov says heavily, “I _knew_ it was contagious.”

Otabek hears it; Yuri can tell. They look at each other. Yuri cracks first, but less than half a second later, he and Otabek are both laughing too hard to breathe properly, and the entire bag of assholes that was this season is absolutely worth it for right now, for the _look on Mila’s face_ , for being the only person in the skating world who knew Motorcycling DJing Metalhead Otabek Altin until five minutes ago. Two years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to _imagine_ this; now, it is so good and so utterly _right_ he almost understands what Otabek meant about quitting skating tomorrow and not giving a shit.

 _Almost_ being the key word.

After all, _third_ -best just means he’s still got work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otabek's SP is Dvořák, but I'm not sure which; his FS is based on the English horn solo in Pines of the Appian Way from Resphigi's Pines of Rome; his Secret Project gala skate is, specifically, Metallica's cover of Queen's Stone Cold Crazy (studio recording from Garage Inc.). Yuri's gala skate is off Gerard Way's solo album.
> 
> This is the end of this series - I have further ideas for thrash-fan Otabek and my boy Yuri, but they'll be standalones. Each of the chapter and work titles is a snippet of lyrics from Faith No More's 1989 album The Real Thing, which is of absolutely no significance - just happened to be what I was listening to on repeat when I started writing. Speaking of, this is the first fun writing I've done and STUCK WITH in about seven years - thank you SO much for your comments and kudos; they helped keep me going! Thanks for reading!


End file.
